Rerun
by Yunno
Summary: The lives of two tiny toons will change . . . FOREVER. Calamity’s Dad went on a single’s cruise to find Miss Right; and he did. The bad news: She is Little Beeper’s Mom. Now Calamity has a new test subject, er . . . stepbrother.
1. Some Enchanted Evening

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

The lives of two tiny toons will change . . . FOREVER. Calamity's Dad went on a single's cruise to find Miss Right; and he did. The bad news: She is Little Beeper's Mom. Now Calamity has a new test subject, er . . . stepbrother. Can these two get along? Reader Request Story. Story concept by brave kid. Genre: Family/Humor.

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Some Enchanted Evening**:

"Beep! Beep!!"

A red and orange blur dashed down the streets of Acme Acres, weaving through pedestrians and occasionally blowing back a stray soda can or newspaper. Little Beeper paused, suspended momentarily in midair to glance behind him to see if his pursuer was still on his tail feathers. The subtitle (_Hot-roddicus Supersonicus_) appeared below the small roadrunner. Sure enough, Calamity wasn't far behind. Caught in the scene pause, (_Canis Nemesis-Ingenious_) appeared briefly over the young grey coyote. Then time released both comedic partners to continue their chase.

Reaching his top speed of 69 kilometers per hour, Calamity dashed up behind and slightly to the left of his prey; the red and orange roadrunner veered sharply to the right. Little Beeper smirked as he ran. This was the third such course change that the small grey coyote had steered him into. He was being herded! The desert fowl scanned ahead, searching for the trap that he knew awaited him. His smirk turned cunning; he'd wondered when Cal would bring this particular strategy into play.

'Surrendering' to the inevitable, Beeper obligingly ran toward Calamity's contraption that looked remarkably like a miniature version of an automated detailing bay. Instead of allowing himself to be funneled into the roadrunner-sized car wash, however, at the last second Little Beeper darted into a nearby alley to spring the trap back on its creator.

Startled from scrounging fish bones from a trashcan, Furrball yowled and dashed from the alley before he realized it was only Little Beeper and not the alley cat duo of Amby and Lloyd come to kick him off his territory again. Before the hapless cat knew what hit him, he found himself propelled along the conveyor belt in the roadrunner trap. It covered him in a fine mist of water soluble paint that blackened his already dark blue fur and ran a paintbrush down his back and tail before spitting him out the other side.

[Ooops.]

[ Sorry! ]

Both Calamity and Little Beeper rushed to help their luckless friend. But it was already too late.

"Oooo la la! L' delectable petite skunk-hunk! Come to me, mon amour!" Hearts throbbing in her eyes, Fifi La Fume appeared skipping down the street in inexhaustible pursuit. Playing kiss-tag was her favorite sport. Drawn to romance like a magnet, the very pretty, purple skunk-ette was nonetheless overpowering . . . in more ways than one.

His ears and whiskers drooping, a look of profound defeat settled briefly over Furrball's features. Then his sense of self-preservation kicked in and the alley cat raced frantically away.

Racing side-by-side, Little Beeper and Calamity chased after the pair. It was never their intention to involve the feline in their rivalry. Beeper cast a sidelong glance at his comedic partner.

[What's the big idea]

[with that last trap!?]

Calamity shrugged at the speed-demon.

[ Meh, ]

[I though you could use]

[ Racing Stripes. ]

Beeper beeped and stuck his tongue out at the little coyote. More than a simple prank, he knew that Calamity had planned on the purple femme fatale wearing down his resistance. Once exhausted and overcome by skunk fumes, even the little coyote could have caught him.

[ If not for Furrball, ]

[that would be YOU!]

Seeing Fifi briefly catch and shower kisses upon a struggling Furrball, the coyote realized just how bad things could have gone for him. It wasn't the hugs and kisses that were so bad, but the inevitable stench that accompanied such chases. The young genius made a mental note NOT to make a repeat attempt with this particular scheme.

"Buster Bunny! Don't your dare! . . ." Babs shouted at her boyfriend, but the pink bunny was interrupted. All four of the chasing toons crashed into Buster and Babs who were having a water fight in the park. Ever unlucky, Furrball got a full dose of Buster's high power super soaker water gun nearly drowning the poor, blue furred alley cat. It did, however, wash away the troublesome white stripe.

The pink bow over her left ear bedraggled and dripping, Fifi sat befuddled in a pile of her classmates. "Have any of vous seen where mon petite skunk hunk, deesapeared to?"

Watching from across the street as the six soggy toons sorted themselves out, Plucky turned to the white loon standing next to him. "So, Shirley, you say that both of them are home alone while their parents are gone?"

"Like totally." Shirley patted the large pink bow in her long blond hair and straightened her pink sweater, glad that she had escaped the watery mayhem. Sure she was a water fowl, but all that water would have seriously ruined her hairdo or some junk.

The small, green duck rubbed his winged hands together. He had a choice of two houses! Plucky began yelling at the top of his voice. "Open-house PARTY tonight!"

Annoyed, Shirley psychic-zapped the green mallard in the tail feathers

A small, purple whirlwind blew through. Dizzy Devil spun to a stop drawn by the promise of a party as well as a tantalizing scent on the breeze. "Mmmmm, roast duck."

**A camera flash goes off**. Blinking away the spots in front of our eyes, we see:

A pink, long-necked flamingo took the names of the two toons sitting at a small, intimate table before moving on to the next couple. To the photographer of the Cruise Toon Romance line, the pair was just two more lonely toons on the deck of the CTR love boat. But to her, he was all the colors of the moonlit night; while to him, she was the very breath of the world's new day. Little did the photographer know that he would be seeing much more of the new anthropomorphic couple.

Flash: The two new lovers danced the Congo-line. "But what would our friends say? . . ."

Flash: The moon shone down, softly back-lighting the two's midnight swim in the ship's deck top pool. "If they are our friends, then they'll be happy for us."

Flash: The couple visited the reconstructed Mayan ruins of Cozumel on a ship sponsored shore excursion. "You know, we really should have gotten together sooner after my divorce and your wife's death."

Flash: The two browsing a gift shop for souvenirs to take home to family and friends. "Well, we have lived as neighbors for years, it'll just be a bit more convenient now."

Flash: Him in a bow tie and collar and her in a veil standing before the ship's captain, saying 'I do.' Another success story in the annals of the CTR love-boat line. Drawing close to the new found loves of their lives, the two kissed. "I can't wait to tell the kids."

**A final camera flash** documenting the lingering kiss of the whirlwind romance:

Plucky smirked as he watched Fowlmouth get his tail feathers roasted by the biggest, most advanced video game he had ever seen outside an arcade. Though the small white rooster was obviously swearing a blue streak, absolutely none of the profanity escaped the noise cancellation dome suspended over the game station. At least he wasn't disturbing the rest of the party. [Game Over!]

"You lose! It's my turn now!" Plucky gleefully shouted.

" . . . dadgum bleeping son of a dadgum bleep! This bleeped game's been dadgummed rigged!" As soon as the small green mallard walked under the cone of silence, Fowlmouth's foul mouth came in full force.

"Yeah, yeah whatever. It's my turn. Now get off the game." Plucky kicked the small white cock off the game system and took over the duel handled control pads. "And watch yer mouth out there, FM. There are ladies at this party!"

Put out only for a moment, Fowlmouth saw his chance now that Plucky was absorbed in 'Marsbound Exterminator.' The lights were low, but every time that Fowlmouth tried to turn them completely out, Calamity growled at him. Sheesh! That dadgummed nerdy coyote genius was even doing homework at a party! Plucky had advertised well; much of Acme Loo's student body was here. Resigning himself to more illumination than he really wanted, the small foul-mouthed rooster sidled up to the prettiest loon in the Looniversity. "Some dag-gumm, bleeping enchanted evening, huh, Shirl?"

"Like, get crucial or some junk, FM." Shirley refrained from psychically blasting the small white cock for his crudeness as she might others. The poultry's language was bad enough without getting the hot seat. Despite having toasted Plucky's tail for foisting another wild party on some poor unsuspecting classmate, Shirley couldn't resist coming anyway. Now though, with the attentions of two amorous fowls vying for her attention, the white loon was beginning to regret it.

Plucky wasn't as involved with the video game as the young rooster thought. As Plucky dived over the back of the couch and tackled Fowlmouth for hitting on 'his' girl, Dizzy spun by consuming much of the popped corn, chips, leftover pizza, and soda that was scattered about the place. Hamton sighed; he pulled out a dust cloth from his blue overalls to clean up the slobber.

Sharing wall space with the game system was an enormous entertainment center that covered the rest of the wall. The blaring music changed every other song as some toon or other would pop in their favorite. For the last several songs, however, Babs had monopolized the machine in its karaoke setting. Buster had staved off a stint of 'spin-the-bottle' by requesting that Babs do a spin-change impersonation . . . at the last party, Elmyra had almost scarred him for life with that particular party game. However now, Babs seemed to be stuck on a 'Cher' kick and was singing into a microphone along with the wall-sized stereo system. The pink bunny was currently in the middle of "Believe."

"_But after all is said and done, You're gonna be the lonely one, oh . . ._" She even got the 'Cher effect' perfectly with its up-front use of auto-tune on the vocals. "_Do you believe in life after love?_"

Even though many of the Toonsters were wary of being here, what with all the inventions and explosives that Calamity had scattered all over the place, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Mary Melody even snagged her one-time pet, . . . and still good friend . . . Furrball, for a dance. Babs' music was infective and more and more of the toons from the Looniversity joined in the dancing and general confusion milling about. And through it all, Calamity just kept up with his inventing. At least with the aid of his inventions, the kid genius was managing to keep the place more or less intact. Hamton shook his head as he cleaned, but the pig couldn't help grinning at the confusion roiling around the place. "I'm just glad that it's not MY house this time."

"_Do you believe in life after love? After love . . . After love . . . After love._" Babs spin-changed from her poof-y, curly black haired version of Cher. "Ya know it, Baby!"

"Hey, Babsy! Do Wonder Babs!" Yelling over the applause, Buster interrupted before his girlfriend could complete her change into yet another of Cher's extreme hair color and outfit changes. The blue bunny personally liked Babs in the spin-change outfits, but he wasn't so sure that he liked all the _other_ guys liking Babs in some of her 'Cher' costumes.

"Up, up, and up some more!" Babs shouted as she emerged from her spin in the red, white, and blue outfit of her supertoon impersonation.

Little Beeper dashed past and snatched away the microphone from Wonder Babs. They certainly didn't need her blasting out their eardrums with her super lung power. The small roadrunner had always secretly considered himself a 'supertoon' with his super speed . . . even without having to spin-change into 'Little Dasher,' like the pink bunny had to for Wonder Babs. Beeper was just glad that he was comedically paired with a super genius so that his adversary was in the same league as him. He'd totally blow away anyone else. Well, he totally blew Calamity away too, but at least the grey coyote did provide him some challenge. The little orange roadrunner with red wings and head feathers beeped, really looking forward to the time after graduation when he and his chase partner made it big and he didn't have to be a delivery boy anymore.

"_If I could turn back time . . . if I could find a way._" Sure enough, Wonder Babs was still singing Cher songs. Though her rendition of "If I Could Turn Back Time" was a shade off as it was the supertoon singing and not the pop singer. The front door flung open, cutting short Babs' musical exhibition. Risking the pink bunny's ire, several of the Toonsters applauded, ready for a change in music.

"Remind me, Roderick, exactly _why_ are we here again?" a cultured, snooty voice cut through the music. Four of the most stuck-up students from the Loo's rival school, Perfecto Prep, strutted in. Two ducks . . . and two rats. Dansforth Drake stole a kiss from his girl, her arm draped through his. Margot Mallard, a tall, pink anseriform with an abundance of wild, magenta hair, batted her big blue eyes and fluttered her extraordinarily long eyelashes.

Nearly every male toon present entered critical meltdown or dropped into an eye-popping wild-take at the curvaceous female. Even Plucky and Fowlmouth emerged from their fight cloud long enough to gawk. Plucky remembered Margot and her false friendliness when the Perfectos had tried to convince him to betray his home team during the Acme-bowl. Now he realized that she hadn't really liked him, but he drooled nonetheless . . . until Shirley psychic blasted his tail again. His only consolation was that most of his male classmates suffered similar 'reminders' to keep their eyeballs in their heads from their respective female Acme Loo counterparts.

"Heh, heh, heh. Trust me on this one, Drake." Roderic Rat spoke conspiratorially to his sidekick. The brown and tan rat's voice sounded a bit rough and gravely, and his chuckle evil. "This party is going to be a blast . . . if you catch my drift." The rest of the Perfecto Prep football team crowded in behind their team captain, ready for a little 'de-constructive' mayhem.

"Outstanding idea." The yellow duck ran a hand through his olive green hair; Dansforth returned his cohort's devious grin. "I do so enjoy gloating over the financially impaired. Ha ha ha."

Buster glanced around at his classmates. Apparently as school class president, he was expected to take charge . . . even though he hadn't called for the party. Buster locked eyes with Calamity, but the blue bunny signaled the kid genius down. Though his other inventions were reliable enough, the little grey coyote's traps were risky propositions at best; and quite frankly, he was a terror with dynamite. He'd handle this! Buster puffed up his chest and approached the encroaching Perfectos. "What are you and your preppy friends doing here, Roddy? This is an Acme Loo party."

"Uh, uh, uh, Mister No-Money Bunny. Not so fast." Roderic Rat flicked a speck of dust from his green polo shirt and straightened his cravat. "This is an _open_-house party after all."

"Yeah, but like, not an open _louse_ party, or some junk," Shirley muttered under her breath.

"Watch it, spooky loon girl," Roddy growled.

"Chill Roddy, after all this _is_ a party." Roderick Rat's girlfriend, Rhubella, fully entered the room but still somehow managed not to mingle with the riffraff. The ginger rat girl's voice would actually be sweet if she wasn't always so snide and biting in everything she said. Ruby turned to the loon as a faux confidante. "It's such a burden being wealthy and sophisticated. We simply _had_ to come slumming to relieve our very high class boredom."

"_We simply _had_ to come slumming to relieve our very high class boredom._" Babs spun into a mocking impersonation of the débutante rat . . . complete with tight purple top and black skirt that were two sizes too small for her. "Of course, everyone knows, only boring people get bored."

Ruby pirouetted but remained as herself. "Oh look, I _am_ Rhubella, I don't have to pretend to be me . . . though I can see why you would want to. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha!"

"As if!" Babs began, but the pink co-star of Tiny Toons was interrupted when Plucky and Foulmouth exchanged looks then took their fight cloud over to the preppies. Why settle for beating the stuffing out of each other when they could take it out on Perfectos? The roiling fight cloud soon sucked in any-toon in its way.

"Oh, great," Buster moaned. "That's all we need . . . for someone to get thrown through the living room window."

Alarmed, Calamity looked up from the invention with which he was tinkering. Despite Buster's assurance that he'd handle it, the small coyote's predator instincts surged to the fore and Calamity struggled through the mass of toons crowding the house toward the fight. But there was more of the student body crowded into the house than he thought reasonable.

[ Mary! ]

[Go long!]

Mary Melody broke away from the press of toons. When the dark complected girl was in the clear, she fielded the compact invention that the coyote lobbed at her. It sported a single large button on the side. Donning a blast helmet and crossing her fingers, Mary pressed it. It unfolded itself into a block-ish contraption. Astonishingly long robotic arms extended from the miniature 'car wash' right into the large fight cloud of Acme and Perfecto toons. As they pulled out two fowls, Mary leaped for the control panel that also emerged and released Fowlmouth from their iron grip, but not before allowing the kid-genius' machine to tape shut his beak. The 'nemesis extractor' wrapped Margot in red tape. Then, with Mary conducting its operation to music, the mechanical arms extended back into the fight cloud again. This time she came up with Plucky and Dansforth.

Mary repeated the same procedure as before, but not before casting a sidelong glance at Calamity. His invention seemed to have a predilection for avians. It was then that she noticed the target selector. Hmm, it listed many prey selections, but no rats. Well, she couldn't really blame the little coyote for not wanting rodents on the menu. The dark complected girl took manual control. It was remarkably like operating one of those claw games at the arcade.

"And Roddy makes a valiant effort to cut through all the red tape, folks! But, oh! it's too much for the preppy rodent and he is hopelessly entangled. It looks like the entire Perfecto team is bogged down." Reporter Mary continued narrating her own efforts. In short order, the anchor-toon for the Looniversity Eyewitless News extracted not only Roddy and Ruby, but the rest of the Perfecto Prep football team as well. With no one to maintain the fight, the dust settled. "Don't you just hate Red Tape?"

"Mary, darling! Allow me to lend a hand . . . or at least a stick of dynamite . . . or fifty." Babs quickly gathered up the stray dynamite from around the room and lovingly tucked it all into the red tape binding the Perfectos. Babs winked and said in an aside; "I can't help myself." The pink bunny lit the fuses.

The explosion was truly spectacular. It shredded the couch and blew the components out of the wall-sized entertainment center. The remaining snacks and soda sprayed everywhere. And the Perfecto Preps flew headlong out of the still opened front door.

A bemused smirk crested Little Beeper's beak. The little roadrunner recognized the contraption as being modified from the trap that Calamity tried to use against him earlier. Ignoring his comedic chase partner, Calamity palmed his face then began upgrading his home cleaning bot to work on damage control.

Babs clapped the dust from her hand-paws and closed the front door behind the Perfecto Preps. She sniffed in well rehearsed disdain. "Riffraff."

The young toons looked at each other for a few moments as the smoke rising in lazy circles slowly cleared, then as one they shrugged and returned to what they'd been doing. Just as the party was getting back into full swing, the door burst open again.

"I'm home. And I've got a little surprise for you!"


	2. Souvenir

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Souvenir**:

A rushing sound filled the house as the Toonsters bailed through windows, the back door, and any other regress that they could find or make. The teens were quick to abandon their classmate to face the wrath of his father. Little Beeper stalled on his way out as he caught sight of the silhouette in the doorway.

"Come on, Plucky!" Hamton tugged the small green duck out with him to escape the party aftermath.

"But, Hamton! I wanna stay for the fireworks." Plucky pulled back but Buster came up behind the green mallard and shoved him out the window.

"Fireworks?" Hamton asked confused. "But it's not the Chinese New Year, or the Fourth of July."

"Now, Plucky," Feeling at least slightly guilty at trashing yet another classmate's home, Buster and Babs Bunny pulled the pig and duck with them. "It's enough that you got him in trouble, he doesn't need you laughing at him too."

Stunned by the unexpected arrival, Calamity held up a sign to the tall figure in the doorway. His Dad wasn't due back until later in the week!

[What are you doing here!?!]

"I live here, remember?" The tall, silver-grey coyote chuckled as he entered carrying a very lovely hen roadrunner bridal style in his arms. It was hard to see his son's conversation sign, even with the illumination of the full moon outside shining in on it. His bride reached over and flicked the lights higher, revealing the devastation that used to be the Coyote's living room. In shock, the coyote dropped his bride to her feet. The orange and yellow hen roadrunner snagged Little Beeper before he dashed off.

[Mom?!?]

Little Beeper stared, stunned that his mother arrived with his nemesis' father.

Gathering his wits, Calamity signed to his Dad again.

[ Nice souvenir, Dad. ]

[Is it one of those bobble head toys for the car window?]

[ Or a nice yummy roadrunner snack? ]

"Neither, son." The older coyote was a taller version of Calamity. Both father and son shared the same silver-grey fur and red nose; though the father's bulbous nose was even larger in proportion to his face than Calamity's. He gazed lovingly into the golden roadrunner's sky-blue eyes. "Calamity, meet your new mother."

[ . . . ]

Then Calamity dropped his sign, gagging at the very thought of his Dad and that, that . . . thing! It was like his Dad went and married a main course. Ewww!

Little Beeper escaped his Mom's arms and dashed off. Moments later, he was back frantically reading over the copy of the marriage license and certificate that he'd just picked up from the toon records office. In toonality, instantaneous updates were common. Both Little Beeper and Calamity stared in disbelief at the documents. They were predator and prey, a comedy chase team, NOT _brothers_! No, no, no, no! This had to be a bad dream . . . but it wasn't.

It was a nightmare.

[ It's not too late!!! ]

[You can still get an annulment!]

Calamity punched up some information on his little palmtop computer showing how their parents could decree their marriage as invalid online in 3 easy steps. But if they waited, it would be too late and they would have to go through an actual divorce.

"No boys, that this is NOT going to happen."

The number of things that Calamity couldn't believe that he was hearing was quite high. Unable to cope with his family situation for the moment, the young coyote whipped up another sign.

[ Wait a minute, Dad! ]

[Since when can you talk!?!]

"Quite by accident, we encountered each other while on the cruise." Dad smiled blissfully at the memory. "We didn't even know that the other was on the same ship. I'd lost my watch and went down to the lost and found to see if anyone had turned it in."

"I was also there asking about a necklace that I lost when the clasp broke." Beeper's Mom returned her new husband's smile, reaching over to take his silver-grey paw in her orange wing-hand. They had both reached for their lost items at the same time, accidentally grabbing each others' hands. With their words of apology, they discovered the synergy between the two of them that gave them voice. "When we touched, we found that we could speak . . .just like Professor Wile E. Coyote can talk when around Bugs Bunny. After that, well, we got close. Isn't that wonderful?"

[No.]

Calamity scowled. Evidence of a synergistic link was no excuse! They should take up a comedy act, not get married! Little Beeper agreed.

[That's disgusting.]

"Boys! Don't backtalk to your father." A tight frown forming on her beak, the orange and yellow roadrunner scolded the two teens.

[ He _might_ your husband, . . . but ]

[that does _not_ make him my Father!]

Calamity added his sign as well.

[. . . nor _that_ my mother!]

"Go to your room!" A warning growl sounded in the father coyote's throat. This was not how he wanted to bring home his new bride. Dad gave both boys a sharp swat on their way to their room for sassing their mother. "Now!"

Mom planted her wings on her hips. "And don't . . ."

SLAM!!!

". . . slam the door."

Dad snarled lightly. Turning to practical matters to rein in his aggravation, the tall grey coyote activated his son's cleaning robot. Calamity made the mechanical maid some time ago to clean up after the father and son bachelors, but that did not warrant throwing a party and trashing the place while he was gone. Good thing that he'd had the house specially reinforced to withstand his son's experiments going critical or it would have been completely demolished. "So help me, I'm going to ground them for a month."

The new Mrs. Coyote looked around the devastated house at the party aftermath. "Make it two."

Mortified that his Dad would punish him in front of his nemesis, Calamity stood in the center of his room with his fists clenched and breathing hard. Standing beside his new stepbrother, Beeper was shocked that the older coyote presumed to discipline him at all. And worse, his own mother let him!

Always quick on his feet, Little Beeper was also usually quick on the uptake. But the bombshell of his Mom marrying Calamity's Dad numbed him. After several long moments, another horror crept over the small red and orange roadrunner.

Books, electronic piece parts, and partially filled multicolored bottles crowded the shelves that lined the walls; while inventions in various stages of completion and just plain junk covered the desk, workbench and even much of the floor. Cal's bedroom door had about every toxic waste, bio-hazard, radiation, and danger warning sign on it known to man or toon. Beeper shuddered. He couldn't live here! There weren't even any mirrors! The only reflective surfaces in the room were the polished steel panels of some of the coyote genius' inventions . . . inventions which gave him the decidedly creepy feeling that he was some sort of specimen in a mad scientist's laboratory.

Abruptly Calamity relaxed and stopped fuming. Realization just dawned that confined under the same roof as they were, the little roadrunner was now his guinea pig! The inventive coyote briefly rubs his paw-hands together. He snickered quietly as he eyed the flashy, bright red and orange roadrunner.

[You never could hide.]

Calamity smirked cunningly and flipped his sign around to show the back.

[ And now, . . . ]

[you can't even run!]

Multiple crashes, booms and bangs sounded from the boys' room.

**The Cat . . . er, Bird . . . is Out of the Bag**:

Professor Granny bustled around the classroom setting up for the day's lesson. This term her Computer Animation class was first thing in the morning and the elderly toon lady noticed a draft from a normally closed window. That was odd. In fact it looked as if the janitor had skipped cleaning the entire room last night. Desks were out of place, and even one of the students' animation computers was on. The lights had even been left on. She pulled the second story window closed, making a mental note to speak with Pete Puma, the janitor, about properly locking up at night. Granny smoothed down her long skirt and sat at her desk to take roll.

"Bunny, Babs."

"Here."

"Bunny, Buster."

"No Relation."

"Cat, Furrball."

"Mrrouwww."

"Coyote, Beeper."

Cursing instantaneous updates, Beeper clunked his head down on his desk. He was the fastest thing on two feet, for crying out loud! He shouldn't have to put up with stuff like this. But this was one humiliation that even he couldn't outrun.

[No comment.]

"Coyote, Calamity."

If a sign could growl, this one would. Apparently their parents had wasted no time in fully integrating the family.

[Relation.]

"Devil, Dizzy . . .."

Granny suddenly stopped, her eyes bugging out in a perfect 'Avery Ah-OOO-Gah!' wild take, complete with a loud horn blaring from her dropped jaw. After a moment, the elderly toon lady primly collected herself and cleaned her glasses on a lace handkerchief. She re-read the roll back up to the 'Coyotes.' "Oh, my! There must be some mistake here."

Yeah, it was a mistake all right, unfortunately not a secretarial one.

Granny wasn't the only one in shock. Several other Avery Ah-OOO-Gahs popped up throughout the computer animation class, and more than one Clampett Corneal Catastrophe giant eyeball as well.

"Oooo, bad news, dude. When Little Beeper was simply prey, if you ate him, it'd be just a coyote-roadrunner thing. No court in the land would convict you. Now that he's your brother, . . ." Monty paused, uttering a low whistle. The rich, spoiled boy clapped a hand on his sometimes henchman's shoulder. "It will be counted as fratricide."

"Mrrrow." Furrball agreed. The scraggly blue alley cat couldn't even begin to pretend how it would be if he and Sweety Pie were suddenly siblings.

Sounding slightly dazed, Babs ratcheted up her jaw to comment. "Oh, how cute! Little Beeper and Calamity are brothers now!"

Little Beeper scowled and blew a raspberry at the popular pink bunny. Just great. With hype like that, they'd NEVER live it down.

Seeing how upset Bab's comment made Little Beeper, Calamity threw his arm over the little roadrunner's back, just to spite him. The little grey coyote grinned, suddenly realizing that he finally caught Little Beeper! But then Beeper clamped his beak on the canid pup's ear. Reacting in pain, the coyote yelped and Little Beeper pulled free. Greatly annoyed, Calamity growled. It seemed that he could catch his _step_brother no problem, but as _prey_, Little Beeper still always got away!

Calamity glanced down, noticing a bright red feather in his grip. The small grey coyote flourished the pinion a bit, taunting Little Beeper with it. He then pulled out an old fashioned ink well, opened his notebook, and began to use the feather as a quill pen.

[Give it back!]

The coyote and roadrunner glared at each other. Calamity was mocking him in front of the whole class!

Calamity sneered. Beeper always mocked him in front of everyone. In fact, the whole school knew of small coyote's repeated failures. It was only his non-roadrunner-capturing inventions that allowed him any sort of credibility with their fellow students at all. Turnabout was fair play.

[Make Me!]

Beeper launched himself at the annoying canid . . . and with his speed, he had a great deal of momentum behind him. The roadrunner and coyote crashed into the next row of desks scattering school supplies and toons alike.

Buster made a flying leap and managed to catch the school computer that fell when his desk tipped over. Seeing the two fight, the blue bunny wondered that the roadrunner and coyote's friendly rivalry suddenly became anything but friendly. Buster took up position behind his overturned desk with a battle helmet on as the two crashed through again.

Plucky walked in late to class. At first glad for the diversion that Little Beeper and Calamity were providing, the small green duck frowned. Was it just his imagination or was the comedy duo's chase taking on the dimensions of an extreme sport? "What's up with them?"

"Oh, they just found out that they're brothers," Babs piped up from her own desk barricade.

"Ah. Sibling rivalry . . . with bombs." Plucky replied, knowingly. "Nothing like family ties to strangle a good partnership."

Despite the obvious dangers of being out in the open, Plucky made his way over to his desk. Minor skirmishes were no excuse for not being in your seat for roll call, and the little green mallard didn't want to give Granny any excuse for picking on him during class. The duo's fight cloud tumbled by, blowing back Plucky into the coyote's desk. Calamity's bottle of ink dumped on the hapless duck, turning him black. Temporarily blinded, Plucky flailed his arms and stumbled around, running himself up against the blackboard and getting a line of white chalk dust down his back. The small green duck glared daggers at the coyote. He just knew that this was in retaliation for him blowing up the coyote pup's house at the party and getting him in trouble.

"You're despicable!" Plucky didn't have time for a worthier retort as he found himself smothered in a long, fuzzy purple tail.

Granny sighed. It was chaotic enough when it was just Little Beeper and Calamity, but now that Fifi and Plucky joined in, she'd better intervene or there'd be no hope of getting through today's lesson. The chase teams often ran a muck during class, . . . the white haired lady cringed at a particularly loud crash . . . but generally they weren't so destructive. The elderly toon lady straightened her shoulders and pushed up the sleeves on her lacy blouse. Granny snagged Little Beeper by his long red tail and Calamity by the scruff of his neck. Plopping them into desks on opposite sides of the room, she snatched the contested feather and handed it back to its owner.

Meanwhile Shirley the Loon managed to tag Plucky with a psychic blast strong enough to reduce the unlucky duck into a Fritz Frizzle . . . at least when the mallard reconstituted from the ashes, the troublesome ink and chalk were gone. But even so, halfway through the period, Granny moved the class out onto the school lawn due to lingering skunk fumes. Everyone was turning slightly green and nauseous. Time ticked slowly by.

"Now, let's see what we've learned so far, shall we?" Granny turned from the portable chalkboard that was set up on the grass. Let's see now. Who had started all that trouble at the start of class? She wasn't sure. "Calamity! Taking into account the time differential for optimal flashback percentage, give me the radiosity and line-sphere intersection for animating a Time Scene Change."

Calamity sighed and got up from his spot on the grass. Some things never changed. And Granny calling on various students at one minute to the end of class to answer ridiculously tough questions was one of them. It wouldn't be so bad, except for the mega-long research papers she assigned to anyone who answered incorrectly. The small grey coyote took the piece of chalk from Granny and began to rapidly fill the chalkboard with equations, giving the complete algorithms instead of just using a computer animating program.

[ ||x-c||²=]r² + x=dl == ||dl-c||²=r² == d²l²-2d(l·c)+c²=r² == d²l²-2d(l·c)+c²-r²=0 == d=(l·c)±√(l·c)²-c²+r² ]

And it only got worse from there. Not that any of the assembled toonsters complained. The kid genius' rambling equations might contain mathematical symbols that they had never even seen before, but they were the only things standing between them and tortuously long homework assignments that Professor Granny was likely to give them if she had time to call on them.

Granny adjusted her wireframe glasses trying vainly to fathom the long, overcomplicated explanation that even she couldn't follow. The young genius probably even wrote his own programs. Finally, Calamity circled his answer and handed the chalk stub back to the elderly toon lady.

"That's absolutely correct!" Experience taught her that the young coyote was always right. Even so, Granny also assigned Calamity the homework of bringing a working example of it to the next class. It was the only way she could think of to test his answer. "And if it explodes, Calamity, you'll be serving detention for a month!"

Calamity slapped a hand to his forehead, not at all amused. Even when he answered correctly, he got penalized! Little Beeper, on the other hand, was positively delighted at his stepbrother's misfortune. The small grey coyote snagged Babs' cell phone, snapped a picture of the chalkboard with his equation and e-mailed it to himself. At least he wouldn't have to rework the problem. The small device was years before its time, but the human world would catch up eventually. He tossed the phone back to the pink bunny.

The bell rang and the Toonsters bolted for the Looniversity doors before Professor Granny got anymore creative homework ideas. As soon as they hit the hall, Little Beeper and Calamity took off in separate directions.


	3. Business as UnUsual

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Business as (Un)Usual**:

Little Beeper pouted, rubbing at the black ink that still stained his pinion feather, even after half a day at school. The red and orange roadrunner peeked into the student lab that Calamity usually occupied during his Study Hall period, but didn't find the conniving coyote there. Beeper headed down to the basement hoping to corner the canine there.

Sure enough, Calamity had buried himself in the Acme Looinversity's basement control room where all the big computers were kept. The small roadrunner grinned to himself as he slipped quietly in. No doubt the ingenious coyote was starting work on Granny's homework assignment. Little Beeper was actually a wiz at computer encryption decoding . . . he'd learned to hack into Calamity's computer files to see what traps the coyote was inventing and how he could make them backfire. It was a skill that he'd often used in the past.

Calamity was so involved with his Time-Change project that despite the fact that coyotes have very good ears and noses, he didn't even catch Little Beeper's scent to know that the roadrunner was near.

"BEEP!!"

Never one to miss the chance to pester his new sibling, Little Beeper sneaked up behind his nemesis, beeping Calamity and startling him into a jump that toppled a whole shelf of equipment. The cocky roadrunner laughed raucously, pointing at the pinned coyote.

Calamity struggled out from under the shelf, then launched himself at the roadrunner. Little Beeper continually tried to sabotage his traps, that was to be expected . . . but the coyote genius was simply furious that Beeper sabotaged his academic endeavors as well. Dispensing with traps or inventions, Calamity slugged his stepbrother.

[ Odd, we've lost contact ]

[with one of the sky-cams.]

Professors Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner entered the Looniversity's basement control room where they monitored their students' progress with the sky-cams in an effort to trace the fault. The lanky brown coyote and blue roadrunner stared in disbelief at their two brawling students. Such attacks were completely inappropriate . . . even by the Looniversity's rather loose villain standards. This went way beyond a simple fight cloud. Wile E. and Road pulled the two off of each other and hauled the feuding duo up to their respective offices.

**Principal Failure**:

"Some dadgum awesome game there this morning, Plucky." Slightly shorter than most of his classmates, Fowlmouth reached up and lightly tapped his knuckles on the green mallard's shoulder. The two skipping out to the arcade instead of attending morning classes had been great fun, but the small white rooster decided to make an appearance at school this afternoon after all, . . . so as not to miss out on the talent show that Buster and Babs were hosting after school.

"What are you on about, FM?" It was odd that Fowlmouth seemed to think that Plucky had played hooky with the rooster instead of going to Granny's computer animation class that morning. Sure he'd been tempted, but he'd gone to class anyway; even if Fowlmouth had made him tardy. Plucky puzzled over the incongruity . . . for all of two seconds before dismissing the mystery as unimportant. The two fowls joined Buster and Babs at their lockers. "Hey! I did not ditch class this morning. I've been in the Loo all day."

"Heh, heh, heh. Yeah right. Have it your way." The small white cock shrugged. He couldn't fault Plucky for wanting to keep secret them skipping out of class from the two bunnies. "My mistake. It must have been some _other_ Plucky Duck at da arcade."

[Bird Brain.]

[Dog Breath.]

Having just gotten out of their 'mentoring' sessions, Calamity and Little Beeper were arguing. Both the red roadrunner and the grey coyote were startled into dropping their signs when Babs and Buster came up between the two to separate them.

"Hey, come on you guys." Always the peacemaker, Buster tried to help smooth things over for the chase team. The whole school had noticed the altered interplay between Calamity and Beeper and were amazed at how bad the duo's disagreements were getting. "There are worse things than being brothers, you know."

[Name One.] [Name One.]

Both Little Beeper and Calamity raised their signs simultaneously. Calamity growled and Beeper stuck out his tongue.

"Come on! Your parents found true love." Caught up in romanticism, Babs didn't notice the looks of disgust on her two classmates' faces. "You should be happy for them."

[Yeah, and you should]

[ marry a carrot cake. ]

That caught the pink bunny off guard. Little Beeper looked decidedly queasy. Babs hadn't considered that predator and prey interspecies marriages were rare for a reason.

Calamity dug in his locker, missing Babs' response. The small grey coyote hauled out a suitcase-like contraption and sidled to the edge of the group. When no one was watching, he ducked out of the conversation. He set his invention down on the Looniversity grounds in a spot that he was sure Little Beeper would come across. He pressed a button on it and it unfolded into an elaborate roadrunner trap. It was one of his nastier ones . . . one that involved a large cooking cauldron when sprung. But since Little Beeper destroyed his homework, he figured that he, too, would up-the-ante.

Having finished setting his trap, Calamity headed into Daffy Duck's gag class. The rest of the Toonsters trickled in. Just as the bell rang signaling the start of the class, Little Beeper dashed to his desk.

Between Calamity's intellect and Beeper's speed, the two were always finished way before the rest of the class. Instead of trying to keep the two occupied, the black Looney Tune mallard usually let the two chase around and occupy each other after their work was done. But after hearing the rumors floating around the teachers' lounge, he decided to take a more proactive approach to damage control. Daffy called Calamity up to go over yesterday's homework assignment while he sat back with a leisurely issue of 'Ducks Unlimited.'

In the middle of class, the wall speaker activated, calling Calamity to the principal's office. Little Beeper smugly folded his wings across his chest and smirked. The kid genius dropped the chalk that he was using and thunked his head against the chalkboard. In trouble twice in one day?! That was extreme, even for one of the school's villains.

"NOW!" The speaker formed a mouth and bellowed. As Calamity ran for the office, Daffy picked up the discarded piece of chalk, thoroughly annoyed that he now had to teach the rest of the class himself.

Upon entering Bugs' office, Calamity's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. There was Principal Bugs red taped to a spit and suspended over the big cooking pot of his most recent trap. The little genius held up a sign.

[How did _you_ ever]

[fall for birdseed?!]

"It wasn't birdseed," Bugs voice sounded dangerously calm, as if he was trying very hard not to blow his top. "It was a CARROT!"

Realizing his mistake in admitting knowledge of the trap, Calamity switched tactics, pretending that he'd never seen the contraption before.

[ So . . . uh . . .. Nice, . . . um, ]

[_exercise_ equipment you got there.]

[ . . . Where'd you get it? . . . ]

Bugs Bunny pointed to the initials 'CC' engraved on the trap with one long grey ear. It was the only part of him that he could move, he was so tied up at the moment. "Where do you think, Calamity Coyote? Da CC don't stand for 'Closed Captioned' ya know."

Not that the tall grey bunny would ever admit it to the young rascal before him, but it was pretty funny . . . or at least it would be if it was any of the other teachers caught in the trap. "NOW GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!!!"

As Calamity approached to release Bugs from the trap, the little coyote subconsciously licked his chops. Bugs had noticed the same gesture from Wile E. before and started to sweat bullets. The little coyote vigorously shook his head to clear it of instinct then swiped out the big cooking pot from under the principal and replaced it with the office chair. Calamity triggered the robotic arms that unraveled the tape and Bugs plopped into his chair. He then deactivated the trap and it refolded itself into its handy carry case. Calamity had his suspicions on how the wayward contraption got into Bug's office, but knowing the fairness of the Looniversity principal, he couldn't lay blame on Beeper without solid evidence. It would only end up sounding like a cop-out.

Principal Bugs Bunny dug in his desk for a pen, scribbled for a moment, then handed detention slips for the next three days after school to the young coyote. "Oh, and Calamity? Fer all da trouble dat you've caused, your paired student project with Little Beeper fer da parent-teacher conference tanight will now count fer half of your overall grade."

[But that's not fair!]

Bugs replied with a sign of his own.

[No, that's comedy!]

"All right, Calamity, get back ta class." A pensive look crossed the Looniversity principal's face as he dismissed his troublesome pupil. It was a good thing that parent-teacher conference was tonight.

Sullen and angry Calamity stormed from the office, plotting revenge on his stepbrother. The Dean of Hard Knocks, Wile E. Coyote, having heard his protégé paged to the office, also showed up and was waiting outside Bugs' office. The tall, brown and tan coyote was concerned about his student getting into so much trouble all of a sudden. Perhaps they should discuss the youth's concerns about his home life? Wile E. caught his young protégé, telling him to put away the trap and then go directly to the dean's office.

Calamity's sullen anger gave way to dismay. TWO penalties for ONE offense?! A crime _he_ didn't even commit! And here he'd thought his day couldn't get any worse.

Coming from teaching the Predator Evasion class, Road Runner watched Wile E. and his protégé go from the principal's office to the Dean of Hard Knock's office. The blue roadrunner decided to call in Little Beeper as well. Chases were strictly 'catch and release' at the Looniversity, but with as angry as Calamity was, it might very well become 'catch and strangle.' In his old chases with Wile E., the blue roadrunner never chased the coyote, nor provoked more than startling him, sticking his tongue out, or riding in buses that ran the coyote down. Well, okay, . . . so he did provoke some, but nothing like Little Beeper's out and out ridiculing and taunts. Beeper was in danger of over powering the stereotypical innocent prey: evil predator ratio. The young bird could very well find himself as lunch if the two didn't tone it down some.

**Sports Fanatic**:

"Hey Pluck-ster! You guys ready yet? come on let's go!" Buster checked the clipboard that he was carrying. "We have you and Hamton scheduled to go on right after Babs and me."

"Say wha? . . ." Clueless, the small green duck sputtered.

"The talent show, remember?" Buster prompted. "You know, the one that Babs and I are hosting so that everyone can get their paired student projects done for the parent-teacher conference."

Hamton dug his elbow into Plucky's side and whispered into his ear. An odd look crossed the mallard's face. "Oh, uh . . .." A reddish blur zipped through pulling away the pig and duck with it.

Puzzled, Buster looked over at his pink co-star. Babs just shrugged at him. The two bunnies turned the corner in the hall and ran into Plucky and Hamton. Buster's jaw dropped. They were even in costume. "Whoa! How did you get here? That Beeper is really fast!"

"What?" 'Batduck' rolled his eyes at his side-kick, 'Decoy.' The blue bunny's non sequitur greeting made absolutely no sense. Plucky tugged his Batduck cape around his shoulders and dramatically stalked toward the gymnasium. "Whatever. Come on Blue Boy and Pinky, aren't you two ready yet? We've got to get to the talent show, remember? I don't want to keep my adoring fans waiting."

Buster shrugged at Babs again and followed the duck and pig. That was odd. As the two stars of Tiny Toons approached the gym, they encountered Calamity as he came out of his mentor's office. The small grey coyote's teeth were bared and a low growl rumbled from his throat. The two bunnies gulped. Neither of them would want any coyote after them with that much pent up anger. "So, uh Calamity, are you coming to the talent show?"

[Can't. Detention.]

Calamity shrugged off Buster and Babs concern. It didn't matter that he had to serve in detention instead of getting to go to the talent show that Buster and Babs were hosting. He and Little Beeper couldn't work together on their assignment without fighting anyway.

Looking at his first detention slip, Calamity saw that he was to serve it under Arnold the Pit Bulldog. Sighing heavily, the grey coyote entered the Looniversity locker room . . . only to find Little Beeper serving detention as well. The two glared daggers at each other. Just great! he couldn't even get away from the feathered nuisance in detention!

"All right, you wussy little weakling sissy girls, listen up!" The white, musclebound bulldog showed Little Beeper and Calamity the huge pile of sports gear that they were to clean. Principal Bugs warned him of the two's feud. "And I'll be watching, so no funny business!"

Little Beeper put in his earphones and brought out his Walk-toon music player to listen to the Japanese twin brothers pop duo, ON/OFF, as he worked. However, since he did have his earphones in, the roadrunner didn't hear the coyote approach.

Calamity casually walked past and surreptitiously cranked up Beeper's tunes full volume. The young genius would never admit it, but he was impressed with his stepbrother's taste in music. Jumping at the loud sound blasting his eardrums, Beeper knocked into a huge rack of equipment. It fell domino-like into all the racks spilling balls and pucks, jump ropes and hockey sticks everywhere. Fighting his way up to the top of the pile that buried him, Arnold growled at the little red and orange roadrunner.

Whistling innocently, Calamity worked on scrubbing the weight lifting equipment. Beeper ripped out the earphones and glared death at his stepbrother.

Strong arming his way into the erupting fight cloud, Arnold pulled the young prairie wolf and desert cock apart. It was going to be a _long_ detention.

**Say What???**:

Finally free from detention, Beeper and Calamity headed for home . . . to start their tenure of being grounded. Oh, joy.

"That was absolutely AWSOME, dudes." Buster tried to high-four the duo, but the comedy chase team just stared at the blue bunny as if he'd suddenly sprouted a third ear. A little taken aback, Buster nonetheless forced his smile to remain in place. After that performance, he hoped the two had reconciled, but apparently not. "Come on. We're heading over to Weenie Burgers to celebrate."

Hamton smiled happily and enthusiastically shook both Little Beeper's and Calamity's hands. "Yeah, you guys really saved my bacon!"

"I'll get you yet, you mangy, no good, razza-frazzing critters!" Instead of rounding on Buster and Babs, a rather bedraggled looking Montana Max advanced instead on the desert duo. The boy's brown hair was mussed and he even sported a black eye. The spoiled rich brat furiously poked Calamity and Beeper in their chests. "I'll get you; I'll get all of you! No one, and I mean NO ONE messes with me messing up everyone else! Do you hear me?!"

The Toonsters stared slack jawed after Monty as he stalked off. Plucky shrugged. "Maybe he's just upset that he wasn't invited to Cal's party."

Calamity and Beeper exchanged confused looks at how odd everyone was acting. And for the moment they forgot that they were mad at each other and were now mortal enemies. What was that all about? They'd been either in class or detention all day!

.

A/N _Blue Boy & Pinkie_ are two Victorian paintings often used as companion pieces. _ Pinkie_ is the traditional title for a portrait by Thomas Lawrence in the permanent collection of The Huntington at San Marino, California where it hangs opposite _The Blue Boy_ by Thomas Gainsborough.


	4. Oh, Brother!

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Oh, Brother!**:

"Did you have a nice day at school today, dears?" Mrs. Coyote got up from the couch to greet her boys.

[No.]

The hen roadrunner reached to give both Little Beeper and Calamity a hug, but the two boys turned to separate areas of the house. Beeper dropped his sign and headed to the bedroom. For once he wished that his after school delivery job was more than just on weekends.

"Calamity? how about . . .." Dad began, but the young coyote flashed a sign over his shoulder as he disappeared into the back room he used as a lab.

[Homework.]

Both parents looked sadly after their sons. The boys were taking this a lot harder than they thought they would. The tall silver-grey coyote slipped his arms around the orange and yellow roadrunner wondering how they could help with the transition and bring their new family together.

Calamity plopped the case holding the trap that caused so much trouble with Bugs onto the workbench and began tearing it down. He opened up his e-mail to retrieve his equation and soon was lost in his work. The young genius didn't even notice when his Dad entered the room some time later.

"Done yet? How about coming to watch the science channel? There's a program about alternate universes on in just a few minutes." Dad smiled. Watching the science channel together was something that he and his boy did a lot.

Calamity collapsed down his renovated invention and tucked it away where Little Beeper wouldn't find it. He then grabbed a collar and remote control device that he'd cobbled together and slipped them into his body pocket. The young coyote followed his Dad back into the living room and hopped onto the couch. Beeper just rolled his eyes. Mom had lured him out with taunts of the video game system. Well, as long as they didn't make him watch a physics lecture with his nemesis, he supposed he could tolerate being in the same room.

"_The universe sits in a sea of parallel universes._"

As Mom watched Little Beeper boot up 'Marsbound Exterminator,' Dad turned on the TV. The two adults exchanged glances then switched positions.

Zip! Zap!

Having the tall coyote come up behind him distracted Little Beeper. He missed his shot and his fighter craft took a heavy hit. The older coyote quietly pointed out several gaming strategies that, though he hated to admit it, the small red roadrunner found very useful.

"_Imagine an entirely separate universe where you could be living a slightly different life at the same time as you live this life . . .._"

Calamity stiffened as Mom came and sat down beside him. The golden roadrunner placed her arm around his shoulders; the soft orange feathers of her wing arm tickled slightly. The little grey coyote slouched further down into the couch cushions. He _was_ imagining a separate universe . . . one without two particular roadrunners in it.

Zap! Zoom!

The little orange and red roadrunner found the hit and relocate tactic very useful in scoring on the game. Unfortunately, it also reminded him of the herding tactic that Calamity had used yesterday to try and maneuver him into his paint trap. Coyotes! You just had to wonder how their devious minds worked.

"_We are experiencing an existential shock. Our world view has been shattered with the realization that . . .._"

Normally, Calamity found leading physicist, Michio Kaku fascinating, but tonight with his stepmother sitting practically on top of him, he couldn't concentrate. The young genius was in shock all right. His Dad remarrying had certainly shattered his own world view.

Tolerating the orange and yellow hen roadrunner's presence as long as he could, Calamity used the commercial break to escape into the kitchen. Leaving Dad holding the game controller while showing the little roadster a tricky button – wrist movement combination, Little Beeper escaped into the kitchen as well. Being grounded and not allowed to go outside, Calamity and Beeper chased around the kitchen, 'playing tag' with short jerking movements and sudden course changes. But try as they might, neither could tag nor escape the other.

Around the table. Under the table Over the table. TIP over the table.

CRASH!

_Through_ the table. And on and on and on . . ..

"Enough!" Both parents wondered just who they were punishing, . . . the boys, or themselves.

Calamity produced a screwdriver and crescent wrench from his body pocket and soon had the table knocked back into shape. The little coyote smiled an apology, then produced the band that he had worked on earlier. He presented the collar to his stepbrother.

[I made it in shop class.]

The young genius then explained how Little Beeper did have a voice. The little roadrunner said 'Beep, beep' all the time. This device would just let him use the voice he already had to form words and speak normally.

"Oh, that is so sweet! Beeper, try it on." Mom took the collar and slipped it around her son's neck before he could protest.

"No, Mom, don't! . . ." The voice that emitted from his throat was surprisingly pleasant. Little Beeper snapped his own beak shut with his feathered fingers. The red and orange roadrunner dashed to the bedroom to pry off the offending piece of technology. It might 'work as advertised,' but knowing Calamity, producing words wasn't all that the collar did. Calamity smiled innocently, then followed to go 'play' with his new stepbrother.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, the young genius pulled out the collar's remote control. He pressed the large black button. As the control box began to shake with power buildup, Little Beeper utilized the cartoon physics 'law of backfire' along with his own gadgetry knowhow and quickly swapped the collar to the little coyote. A huge electromagnet powered up and the collar was magnetized to clang against it, trapping the kid genius. Calamity dropped the remote control at the sudden movement. Beeper caught it and cranked up the power to its highest setting.

LUCKILY the power drain blew the transformer. The entire house, along with every other house on the block, went dark. Without power, the electromagnet ceased working and the frazzled coyote ripped off the collar . . . or perhaps not so luckily.

"BOYS!"

Calamity and Beeper's parents had never seen how the two chase around. They both knew that the two boys did, but since the kids never chased in their houses, they didn't know if this level of rivalry was normal or not. At least now it was time to go to the parent-teacher's conference at the Looniversity. Maybe the boys' instructors would know.

**Normal?**:

The gymnasium was set up open house style. Tables and chairs for the various professors were scattered about so that the students and their parents could wander to each station and visit with the instructors. Professors Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner purposefully set up their stations next to each other. The Looney Tune chase team felt it would be easier on everyone if they could deal with their protégés together.

Seeing the Coyote family enter, Bugs Bunny left his own station and meandered over. Most of the other students and their parents had already come and gone, so the tall grey rabbit wasn't busy at the moment. Since Little Beeper and Calamity had been attending Acme Looniversity for some time now, they all knew each other already, but this was the first time that the professors met Beeper's Mom as 'Mrs. Coyote.'

After greetings, Professor Road shuffled through the In-Box on his table. The blue roadrunner was surprised to find a neatly labeled student team project from Little Beeper and Calamity. Exchanging surprised looks with his co-star, he popped it in the player and started the video.

Their mentors weren't the only ones surprised. It didn't take long for Beeper and Calamity to figure out that neither of them had turned it in. In fact, the two of them hadn't been able to get along well enough to even work on it. It must have been their parents or someone who did it in an effort to manipulate them into accepting their new family situation.

As the adults settled into chairs to watch the presentation, Calamity made a swipe at Little Beeper, trying to catch him. The little speed demon sidestepped his pursuer and soon the two engaged in a full force chase.

[I'm the innocent prey here!]

Little Beeper signed a taunt to the little grey coyote as he ran. Calamity retorted back.

[ Innocent!?! ]

[So says the fowl that ran me down]

[with a semi-truck 4 times in a row!]

Watching the assignment video, Bugs Bunny was impressed. It seemed that his little chat earlier with Calamity Coyote was to good effect after all. The Looniversity principal was simply astounded at how skilled and cooperative Beeper and Calamity were in the presentation. On the viewing screen, '_Beeper and Calamity converged on the stage front, looking straight out at the audience while slowly backing away. They suddenly turned, and side by side, the two stepbrothers slipped into the shadowed recesses of backstage. The lone spotlight winked out and the curtain fell_.'

The video presentation ended. Bugs stared at the monitor a moment longer, but was startled out of his reverie by a loud crash as several of the teachers' stations were wiped out by the duo. The grey bunny looked up at the chase, then back to the blank screen, then up to the chase again, noting the stark contrast between the presentation and the duo's current misbehavior. Not many people their age could so thoroughly portray two completely opposite dispositions. "Okay, . . . now I'm scared."

[It was only 3, don't exaggerate.]

Little Beeper continued their previous argument.

[3 times and one runoff the]

[ road totaling Dad's car! ]

If Calamity had tried that trick with the truck, it would have backfired on him . . . in multiple ways . . . and he'd probably have end up in juvenile detention hall for it!

During one romp through the gym Beeper actually chased Calamity, earning double-takes from the teachers. Sitting on Professor Sylvester's shoulder, Professor Tweety shook his little yellow head. Their table was one of the casualties of the chase. It wasn't Calamity's and Little Beeper's academics that were concerning. But recently, the comedic chase team was acting up in school as well. The small Looney canary looked over to his big black and white tomcat partner. "Those two are sure going to a lot of trouble . . . to get into trouble."

Mrs. Coyote cringed as the two youngsters chased through again. Confused about the video, the sunshine yellow and orange roadrunner and moonlit silver-grey coyote held each other's hands. The presentation was so sweet and brotherly. But now it seemed as if Calamity and Little Beeper detested each other. What were they going to do about their boys? "Is . . . is this normal?"

"Ss-strange choice of words-ss, madame," Professor Sylvester sprayed spittle as he spoke. "But yes-ss. That'ss a normal class-ss assignment."

Just then Calamity tore through hot on Little Beeper's tail. The small red and orange roadrunner toted a huge flamethrower that he fired over his shoulder behind him. While the young genius coyote wore thick rubber gloves and protective goggles and was holding a beaker with the bio-hazard symbol on it. Sparks and fizzles were foaming out of the top of it.

[Okay, that's NOT normal!]

Wile E. signed, resorting to his silent ways in shock even though Bugs was right there. The adults all rushed to stop the out-of-control kids.

**One Minute 'Til Three**:

Early the next morning, Buster and Babs hopped into Granny's computer animation class. The walls were still slightly pink from where Pete Puma, the Loo's janitor, had scrubbed down the room with tomato juice. Granny was there already, as was Calamity Coyote. The kid genius was setting up his Flashback Time Scene Change homework demonstration.

"Hey Cal, how's it going?" Buster came up close to watch, but was careful not to touch his classmate's invention. The young coyote turned briefly and flashed the blue bunny the thumbs-up sign. The small grey coyote pressed a button on the side of his contraption, expanding it out into an impressively large console with a potbellied base.

Standing to one side with Fifi as the rest of the class entered the room, Beeper recognized his stepbrother's invention as built from yesterday's troublesome trap. The little roadrunner was NOT amused. But after the very firm talking to . . . and yet more associated penalties . . . of last night from just about _everyone_, the two stepbrothers were doing their best to ignore each other. Still, it was intriguing. Seeing that Calamity was talking with the school class president, Little Beeper excused himself from the skunk-ette who'd been trying to keep his mind off of his stepbrother. The small roadrunner ducked around behind Calamity's machine and set about seeing what made the contraption tick.

"So, how's it work?" Buster wasn't so interested in the machine as he was in keeping peace in the classroom. As long as the genius was talking to him and involved with his experiments, he wasn't feuding with Little Beeper. The blue bunny's own mentor, Bugs Bunny had hinted that his coyote and roadrunner classmates might need a little extra help in keeping themselves out of further trouble.

[Magic.]

"Magic . . . ri-i-ight." Buster crossed his arms across his chest and raise an eyebrow at the little coyote.

Seeing Buster's skepticism, Calamity held out a thick volumed thesis on 'How It Works' by C. Coyote. 'Not proofread' was stamped across the cover; it was still in the experimental stage.

"Uh, right." The blue bunny briefly flipped through the volume, but if that was English, you sure couldn't prove it by him.

"Good enough for me." Babs proclaimed and dragged her boyfriend toward a seat in the front row. Calamity's inventions might be incomprehensible, but they were nearly always worth watching. "It's magic."

Seeing Monty smirking out the window, then asking to be excused for a bathroom break, however, prompted the blue bunny to look out the window himself. Buster's eyes popped wide open. Rank upon rank, a veritable battalion of shining silvery robots with circle saw and pickax attachments was marching against the Acme Looniversity walls! "Hey, guys!!! . . ."

At that moment Calamity's machine coughed to life. A time warp visual effect wavered out to engulf nearly a dozen of the Toonsters and for a brief moment it looked as if the reality of all toonality took a double exposure of everyone in the field of the effect.

"_Hey, guys! . . ._" Buster's words doubled, sounding with a slight resonance.

.

A/N #1 The science program was taken from "The Universe" series, episode "Parallel Universes."

A/N #2 The original line "Dat putty tat is sure going to a lot of trouble . . . to get into trouble!" is from the old Tweety and Sylvester cartoon "Ain't She Tweet."


	5. Do You Have the Time?

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 5

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Do You Have the Time?**:

Then everything went dark.

"Hey, guys!!! . . ." Buster stalled and his voice rose, cracking with a touch of panic. "What just happened!?!?"

"Ahhhh! I'm blind! I've gone blind!!!" Plucky ran about in circles, waving his arms wildly in the air.

Fifi stepped back from the flailing duck to avoid bodily injury. The purple skunk-ette caught sight of the full moon shining through the schoolroom window. The mephitidae sighed dreamily.

"Meow," Furrball pointed out. The mangy, blue furred alley cat flicked on the lights, illuminating the computer animation classroom.

"AHHHH! Everyone's gone!" The realization that he could see did little to alleviate the duck's panic. The desks were neatly in their places and the chalkboard was clean and ready for use. But aside from the small group of toons who had been clustered around Calamity's invention, no one was in the room. Even Professor Granny was missing.

"Like, chill, Plucky. It's not Granny and the others that are, like, gone." Shirley the Loon sat suspended in the air, meditating. The cosmic vibrations to which the white loon was tuned felt familiar . . . way _too_ familiar. "It's, like, _us_ who are gone or some junk."

"NOOOOO! Not lost in limbo!" The green mallard grabbed double fist fulls of Calamity's chest fur. Somehow, the small green mallard unreasoning panic allowed the others to look at the situation more calmly. "Don't just stand there being nerdy! Do something!!!!!"

[We're back in time!]

"We're back in time for what?" Babs cocked her head, trying to figure out what they were in time for and if they were in danger of being late for something.

[ No, I mean that my Scene Change animation simulator ]

[latched into the toon-ality space-time fourth dimensional]

[ cosmic string in a localized discrete event horizon. ]

"English, Cal?" Buster prompted. Though seeing Plucky suddenly calm with a blank look on his face, the blue bunny had to admit that the kid genius' scientific mumbo jumbo did have a calming effect . . . in a mind numbing sort of way.

Calamity sighed and brought up another sign.

[We're caught in a flashback.]

"Oh great. I hate reruns." Over his panic attack, Plucky folded his arm wings over his chest. It was bad enough that there were reruns on TV without having to live one. The green duck collapsed against Hamton's shoulder. The little porker still had a stunned look on his face.

Little Beeper edged out from behind Calamity's scene change machine, distancing himself from potential blame. He'd only wanted to see the modifications made. He hadn't really intended to sabotage the machine . . . especially he didn't want to become caught in it himself. Shoving aside the feeling that he was a royal screwup, the small roadrunner adopted his habitual brash flippancy to cover his mistake. Besides, even _if_ it was his fault, it was still Calamity's problem.

[Way to strand us in time, Cal.]

[ Think you can get us back? ]

Calamity bristled, but cocked a thumb over to the empty spot where he had set up his scene changer. The machine itself didn't come back in time with them; it was still in present day. The kid genius pulled out his hand-held computer then sat at a desk and turned on its classroom computer as well for the added CPU. A little extra computing power wouldn't go amiss. Figuring out how far back in time they slipped might take some time.

Babs hopped up to sit on Granny's desk to wait for Calamity's results. This could take a while. She built a construct out of paper clips. She rearranged the pens. She played the Tiny Toon theme song on rubber bands. After two whole minutes of this, the pink bunny hopped down again and grabbed Buster by the front of his red pullover shirt. "Buster! Do-o-o-o something!"

Buster sighed. Babs never was very good at waiting. But still his girlfriend had a point. They were stuck here, locked into the school at night, while Calamity worked his calculations. "Alright-y gang, what we need a plan!"

Fifi pointed down to the Looniversity courtyard illuminated by the pale moon light. "We could always just, how you say, wait for zee dawn."

"Like mondo bad idea, guys." Shirley wasn't sure what would happen if they showed up in their own past, but it couldn't be good. The moon shining through the window was a big hint that some actual time slip happened, and not just a special animating effect. "Mucking with time is like major bad karma or some junk."

"Okay." Buster wandered over to the classroom door and tried the knob. "Locked. Hmm. There are also burglar alarms that we'll have to deal with as well."

[Cal can do it.]

Beeper hadn't meant his sign as a compliment to the cur, though the others seemed to think so. Calamity was billed as one of the school villains. As such, his skills could come in handy.

"Or we could just climb out a window." Sure they were on the second floor, but that was no problem. Mary performed a spin-change into a Jungle Jane outfit complete with a vine coiled over one shoulder. "Allow me, guys."

The dark complected girl had Dizzy pry open a window that hadn't been opened since the Looniversity was first drawn. Mary Melody secured one end of her vine rope to Granny's big heavy desk and the Toonsters slid down it to the ground below.

"Come on, Cal." Mary dragged the kid genius away from his computer. "We're relocating."

[ Good idea. ]

[ My computer at home ]

[would be better for this.]

Calamity looked up from his work, surprised that the others had already left. He followed the dark complected girl down the rope vine to the grassy courtyard below. The young coyote took a final look at the illuminated open window above them, . . . he really should have powered down the computer before he left. But Mary had already re-spun into her normal school clothes and even the vine was gone with her costume. Calamity shrugged and turned back to his hand held computer. He walked home only vaguely aware that the others were following.

After secreting most of their fellow students in Fifi's old Cadillac, Buster and Babs led Plucky, Hampton, Shirley, Beeper, and Calamity to the kid genius' house. A smaller group would be easier to conceal. As they walked, the little grey coyote explained his findings so far to anyone who was interested in reading the signs. The good news was that when their current time loop caught up to the present, it would smooth out again and time would proceed as normal . . . well, what passed for normal in toonity anyway. The bad news was that without his Scene Change machine, he couldn't verify just how far back they went. And with his machine stuck in the present, he'd either have to build another one or they would just have to wait it out.

Plucky was NOT one of those interested in a science lecture. "Sheesh, what's so hard to figure out? We traveled back in time one and a half days."

"Wow, like Plucky! How do you know?" Shirley hated to stroke the little green duck's overinflated ego anymore than it already was, but the cosmic striations did seem right.

Plucky smirked, cocking a thumb over to the coyotes' house. The music from the party could be heard a block away.

"M-maybe we should get out of sight." Hamton suggested nervously. The pink porker bustled his friends into the shadows across the street. "There's just something unnerving about being in two places at the same time."

"Well, this gives new meaning to the term 'double-date' wouldn't you say?" Babs grinned at finding herself in a shadowed recess with her boyfriend across the street from where the two of them were currently at a party.

A huge blast rocked the neighborhood and the Perfecto Prep party crashers flew into the street. Silence fell over the street, but if any of the neighbors breathed a sigh of relief, still none of them so much as looked out their windows to see what was going on. Explosions were common in the neighborhood. Most figured the disruptions were worth it as the Coyotes were good about repairing any damage done. Plus, when the father and son were done with repairs, whatever they worked on was actually better than the original.

"Well, I must say, Roddy, this party certainly was _a blast_, but not the kind I anticipated . . . if _you_ catch my drift." Dansforth's scathing remark might have earned him Roderick Rat's full ire, if all the Perfecto Prep students weren't so busy trying to untangled themselves from red tape.

Growling and sputtering incoherently, Roddy tore uselessly at the red tape entangling him until Ruby doused him with a bucket of water. "Thanks, I needed that."

But the gratitude didn't last. "Grrrrrrr, never before have I felt so completely humiliated! . . . again!!" The brown and tan rat thew down the wad of red tape and fell beside it, pounding the ground with his fists.

The Acme Looniversity students hiding in the shadows watched in amusement at the sight of someone their own age throwing a temper tantrum. Plucky snickered. "Wow, he's just like Elmyra when she doesn't get the pet she wants."

Perfecto Prep's quarterback gathered his dignity and turned to his football team members. "Hey, I'm a stud. Don't worry about me."

"We weren't," Margot began, but her yellow and olive green anseriform boyfriend shushed the magenta duck.

"Okay team, huddle!" Roderic Rat pulled Dansforth Drake, his center lineman, as well as the jackass halfback and bulldog offensive linemen in to talk strategy. Though, since he thought they were alone, the brown rat didn't bother keeping his voice down. The Toonsters from the future could easily overhear the Perfecto's swearing vengeance on them. "Those Acme Loo losers won't know what hit them."

Ruby Rat chortled, her thin, sharp features breaking into a malicious grin. The Perfectos left to return to their high class dorms. "Only the crème d' la social crème will have a school when we are done."

Thinking fast, Buster put two and two together . . . and came up with five. Or at least rampaging robots. He quickly filled in his friends on what he saw before the time slip. "Guys! Just before Cal's machine zapped us all into yesterday, I saw a whole battalion of robots about to attack the Looniversity. The Perfectos must have gotten Monty's help to do it."

"What a minute! Do you know what this means!?!" Plucky shouted. "I can slip the answers to Daffy's pop quiz to myself!" The little green mallard's excitement rose. "Wait! Even better, if the Looniversity is destroyed then I won't have to do homework for the rest of the week. Buster! this is great!!"

"Plucky! no it's not!!!" Buster grabbed the little duck by his white T-shirt, sorely tempted to shake some sense into his friend. "If the preps destroy the Looniversity, then we'll never learn to become stars! We'll be Tiny Toon has-beens before we can even become am-ares!"

"Why don't we just go ask ourselves for help?" Babs asked, pointing back to Calamity's house. "I'm sure we'll be happy to help us out."

"Because, Babs, like 'now' is already history, or some junk. Since this time frame is like already totally passed, we really aren't supposed to even be here," Shirley the Loon warned. The Toonsters should not be seen . . . especially by themselves. "Luckily, we like know that we're all at the party, so we totally won't run the risk of accidentally running into ourselves or some junk."

[ But, Shirley, time is like a river.]

[ Take out a bucket full of water, ]

[and the current will just fill it in.]

And one day wouldn't even be a drop in comparison to all of history. Calamity shrugged and headed for his house. Getting his own help sounded reasonable to him.

"No, Calamity. Time is like a balloon. Poke a hole in it, and it will like pop, or some junk." Shirley insisted. The white loon grabbed the coyote by the scruff and pulled him back. "We CANNOT change what has already happened!"

The white loon and grey coyote glared at each other. But which was correct? the scientific theory, or the spiritual conjecture? Theory was not fact, but neither was conjecture knowledge. Suddenly both loon and coyote relaxed, sharing cunning grins as they cam to an accord.

[But we _can_ influence . . .]

". . . what has not yet occurred." Shirley finished Calamity's thought.

"Like the Perfectos demolishing the Loo!" Buster exclaimed excitedly. "All righty gang! First off, we need a place where we can plan."

[My place then.]

Little Beeper hated to admit it, but since his past self and his mom would now be staying at Calamity's place, his old home was empty. It would make a good base of operations.

"Great! We can get the others and hole up there while we come up with a plan." With a definite course of action before him, Buster was ready and raring to go.

Calamity's eyes widened in horror and he nearly fumbled his hand-held computer-calculator. Little Beeper followed his rival's gaze; the color drained from his feathers. Their father and mother drove up and were getting out of the car. The last 36 hours had been bad enough to live through the first time. Neither of them had any desire to watch all over again them finding out that they were stepbrothers.

Buster pulled the group of Toonsters further into the shadow. Seeing the tension mount between roadrunner and coyote again, the blue bunny stepped in with a grand, motivating inspirational speech. "Come on guys, we need to pull together to save our beloved school! . . . a unified force against insurmountable odds!"

But the only insurmountable odds were in getting the coyote and the roadrunner to stop trying to kill each other. Little Beeper blew a raspberry at Calamity, and Cal growled back. That was when Babs pushed past her boyfriend. "Let me handle this."

"If you two so much as _sneer_ at each other, we will hogtie you both . . ." Ignoring Hamton's indignant protest, the pink bunny put an arm around each Beeper's and Calamity's shoulders and drew them both close. Her voice was saccharine sweet. ". . . and I will _personally_ leave you on Elmyra's doorstep."

Babs patted them both softly on the cheek then rejoined Buster. "They'll behave." In response to her boyfriend's incredulous stare, she added, "It's a talent I have."

As the others moved off to collect the others then meet at Beeper's place, Plucky grabbed Hamton and sneaked close to spy through the window at the parents coming home and finding the party mess. He was always delighted when it wasn't him getting in trouble.

**Turnabout**:

The Toonsters entered the roadrunners' darkened house, drawing the curtains tight before turning on any of the lights. The house was supposed to be empty and they didn't need anyone coming by to check on it. Calamity pushed through his group of friends and headed straight to his stepbrother's old room. He flicked on the lights.

[Oh, . . . just brilliant.]

The light reflected off the full wall-sized mirrors causing reflection upon reflection receding to infinity. The main piece of furniture in the room was a bird stand in one corner. His eyes stung from the bright light reflected all over the room.

[Literally.]

He couldn't work in here! The small coyote felt like he was imprisoned in the mirror torture chamber from The Phantom of the Opera novel by Gaston Leroux. Once his eyes adjusted, the canine genius started digging. Calamity dug through his chase partner's drawers, closet and old toy box, pulling out stray tools and old electronic toys. He found a drawer with half a dozen or more Jr. Detective wrist watches ordered from cereal box tops. Calamity snorted. Little Beeper and his Mom must have eaten a lot of cereal to get all those watches. Scooping the Jr. Detective watches in his pile of piece parts, the young genius hauled his finds to the kitchen table. Calamity got right to work, leaving the others to finalize plans and entertain themselves until dawn.

**Runaround**:

"Look! There it is." Mary Melody pointed to the football-like sky-cam flying scanning the streets of Acme Acres. The girl roller bladed after the surveillance device as it drifted over the park. The toonsters had spent the better part of the night coming up with a workable plan for stopping the Perfectos . . . and gaining access to one of the teachers' observation cameras.

"Oui. Those two know, how you say, know zere mentors on spotting, non?" Fifi skipped along beside the dark complected girl. It felt odd knowing that school was starting soon, but not to be going to class.

"That's 'spot on,'" Mary corrected the French skunk-ette. "But yeah, Little Beeper and Calamity were right about where to intercept one of Professor Wile's sky-cams. The real problem is, how are we going to snag it when its up there and we're down here?"

"Oui," Fifi agreed. "And without if filming us!"

"Mreow!" Furrball dashed up a nearby tree, but just before the scroungy blue furred alley cat leaped for the sky-cam, he spotted Sweetie Pie on her way to school. Licking his whiskers hungrily, Furrball pounced after the pink girl canary.

"Furrball, no! Bad kitty!" Mary skated madly after the notch-eared kitten before he could run into himself.

"Oh non, Dizzy. It looks like we are on our own." Fifi looked up at the sky-cam, then down to the small Tasmanian devil beside her. The purple skunk-ette smiled, getting an idea. "Dizzy, can you spin and suction it down?"

At Fifi's suggestion, Dizzy started spinning. Unfortunately his vortex only suctioned in from the sides, not from up. He managed to pull in the trash basket, which he happily munched down. The purple skunk-ette then positioned the devil on one end of the seesaw. Try as she might, though, Fifi just wasn't heavy enough to launch the purple Tasmanian devil into the air after the sky-cam.

"Boy, it's a lot harder to stay out of sight than I thought it would be." Mary Melody made a flying leap and snagged Furrball as his original self dashed through and started chasing Sweetie on the way to school. The pink canary girl squawked loudly in surprise that her chaser was suddenly in front of her instead of behind.

Heaving a sigh of relief at just barely avoiding being seen, Mary with Furrball still in her arms, didn't watch where she was skating. The two tangled briefly with the tetherball. The ball, suspended by a cord flung the girl and cat around its pole until they flung off, sailing through the air to land on Fifi on the upside of the seesaw. Down they went, and up went Dizzy.

Sent flying, the little purple devil snatched the flying video recorder in his mouth. The girls cheered. With Dizzy snatching the camera, even if the professors caught him on tape, Wile E. and Road would just assume that the little Tasmanian devil got hungry. The light purple devil with one pink and one blue eye spun off through the park.

"Meow, mrreow!" Furrball frantically waved his skinny blue arms in the air before dashing off after his garage disposal friend.

"You're right, Furrball!" Mary said, skating madly after the small purple Tasmanian devil. The girl grabbed Fifi on her way past, dragging the skunk with her. "Now that we have the sky-cam, we have to save it from Dizzy!"


	6. Special Ops

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Special Ops**:

Concentrating on his inventing, Calamity barely acknowledged Little Beeper's presence when the red and orange roadrunner came up behind him. The others were out, . . . well, most of them. Buster left Shirley behind with the small roadrunner and coyote while the rest of the time-displaced Toonsters went gathering the stuff they needed. The genius wasn't too concerned. The white loon and her psychic blasts would keep the roadrunner in line. An involuntary scowl tugged at the corners of the little coyote's muzzle. She kept him in line too. And then there was always Babs' threat . . ..

[What do you want?]

.

[From you? Nothing.]

But that wasn't really true. Little Beeper stared over his chase partner's shoulder. The quickster reached over picking up one of the disassembled toy watches that the coyote genius had modified. His feathered fingers working as quickly as his feet, he put it together. Beeper turned the Jr. Spy Watch on. The tiny screen showed only static, but the sound clearly picked up Shirley's chanting from across the room. 7:23. The small red roadrunner snorted. Imagine that . . . it even told the correct time. He suddenly dropped the watch and whopped Calamity upside the head.

[Ow! . What?!]

Calamity rubbed the tender spot and glared into the suddenly angry eyes of his roadrunner stepbrother. The little grey coyote sneaked a glance over to the loon who was supposed to be keeping the peace. Great . . . what a time for Shirley to be meditating.

[ You don't belong in Acme Looniversity!]

[I don't know why you even bother going.]

Shock froze the little coyote. But the irate fowl flipped his sign over before his so-called _comedy partner_ could retaliate.

[ You and your idiotic inventions. ]

[ Where's the comedy in that? ]

[You'll probably just go off after graduation]

[ and become a world famous _SCIENTIST_. ]

A long, coyote ear twitched. Little Beeper said 'scientist' as if it was a dirty word. Of course, comedy was his first option, but it never hurt to have a fallback. Dismissing the red roadrunner's illogical tirade as unimportant, the kid genius turned back to the universal remote control unit on which he was now working. Buster wanted the spy equipment finished by the time the blue bunny and the others got back.

[You'll come with me as my lab partner if I do, of course.]

[I'd never take a science position without my lab partner. ]

.

[Wha?! . . .]

At the surprised response, Calamity glanced up, surprised in return. He had just assumed it. It was evident to him, and should be obvious to anyone who saw their chase act, that without Little Beeper he'd never get the bugs worked out of his inventions . . . or at least not near as quickly. It was Little Beeper who got his inventions to fail so he could debug them. By the time the two of them were done, the inventions worked.

Cal really wouldn't leave him behind as a broken half of a comedy duo? A worry that Beeper hadn't consciously known that he harbored loosened in his chest. Beeper was ecstatic. They would either be in comedy or in science . . . and if their Looniversity days were any indication, it would be both! The little red and orange roadrunner picked up another modified watch to put back together.

[Here.]

Calamity tossed one of three voice collars that he'd constructed over the course of last night to Little Beeper. With these, all the silent toons could talk with the other Toonsters over their wrist radios during their mission to save the Looniversity. He only made three . . . one for little Beeper, one for Furrball, and one for himself. Dizzy would only eat his. Besides, the little purple devil _could_ talk already but like his mentor, Taz, he chose to garble his sentences.

[How do I know it's not trapped?]

Beeper looked suspiciously at it, remembering the first one that Cal made for him. Even when his stepbrother offered to let the little red roadrunner randomly choose which he wore, the fowl wasn't convinced. He trusted that the coyote genius wouldn't sabotage himself or Furrball, but . . .."

[You're smart enough to make them target specific.]

.

[ True, but I didn't. They're clean. ]

[ Just because I'm a school villain ]

[doesn't necessarily mean I'm evil.]

"Finally!" The small green mallard, along with Buster, Babs, and Hamton trooped into the kitchen from their shopping trip. Plucky dropped his armload of grocery sacks on the kitchen table, disrupting Calamity and Beeper's work.

Exhausted, Buster plopped the grocery bags that he carried onto the kitchen table as well. It hadn't worked to split up Babs, Shirley, and Fifi. The blue bunny was still exhausted from provision acquisition. "Sorry, Cal, we need the table."

The small grey coyote and the red roadrunner, quickly gathered up their tools and project and adjourned to the coffee table in the living room. While Hamton put the groceries away, Babs wandered over to the white loon meditating in the corner of the living room while keeping an eye on the desert chase team.

"It takes a lot of work for those two to stay mad at each other. When they aren't paying attention, they actually get along." Babs commented. It was nice to see the two acting as brothers.

"Don't tell Beeper and Cal that." Shirley dropped out of her meditative position and placed a warning hand on the pink bunny's shoulder. "Like that would be a mondo drag on their cooperative auras or some junk."

Babs looked between Shirley and the duo a time or two, then realized what the loon was really saying. "Oh, you mean that they're stubborn and if we point out how well they work together, they'll just turn nasty and start fighting again."

"Like, totally."

Mary Melody, Dizzy Devil, Fifi La Fume, and Furrball Cat tumbled into the house, laughing and giggling at their little misadventure. "We got the sky-cam!"

[Oh good.]

"Just put it there." Little beeper was nearly as surprised by his vocalization as the Toonsters were. This collar worked even better than the prototype.

"You know, its too bad that we didn't know we'd need the camera before we broke out of the school last night." Mary set the hard won device on the coffee table in front of the ingenious coyote. "It would have been easier to take from the supply closet than having Dizzy snag it out of the sky."

[Not really.]

Even though Calamity had one of the voice collars, he still used his signs. Little Beeper smirked. No worries. He'd keep Cal from becoming too reclusive of a scientist. "Professors Wile and Road keep them under lock and key when not in use to keep us out of them."

Mary shook her head in remonstration, but flashed a brilliant smile at the chase duo nonetheless. "Apparently their precautions don't work."

[Not terribly well.]

Calamity confirmed the reporter girl's suspicion. The last time that he and Beeper had gotten a hold of the sky-cams, it was three days before their mentors caught on to the fact that they doctored the footage of their chases. An involuntary frown tugged at the corners of the coyote's muzzle. The consequences for that stunt had NOT been worth it.

The young genius picked up the sky-cam and pulled a face of disgust. The camera was dripping Dizzy slobber. Hamton whipped out his ever-ready cleaning cloth and polished it up for the little genius. While Calamity changed its broadcast frequency and tied it into the tiny screens on the junior detective wrist watches, Little Beeper reprogrammed its flightpath. As soon as they finished, Buster would divide up the Toonsters into reconnaissance teams for keeping the various Perfecto Preps under observation. They had to know what the preppies' plan was before they could stop it. The two began conversing while they made the sky-cam into a spy-cam.

[It's not us. We're friends.]

[At least most of the time.]

"It's that our parents that wrecked it all by getting married."

Neither the little prairie wolf nor the desert cock could quite bring themselves to apologize to the other, but they could agree on the source of their problems . . . as well as a course of action to alleviate them. Subconsciously uniting in a common goal. Little Beeper sent out the spy-cam to monitor the Perfecto Prep villains. Calamity pocketed the universal remote control. Then the two quickly slipped away before Buster could assign them another 'babysitter.'

**Operation Split Up**:

It wasn't really all that far from Beeper's old house to the Coyotes; in fact, the comedy duo had to be careful not to be spotted by not only their parents and neighbors, but also by their fellow time-displaced Toonsters. Calamity reached up and yanked Little Beeper down with him behind the hedge around his house. The small red roadrunner stifled a squawk of alarm, then hunkered down beside the coyote. He wasn't a predator. It felt odd to be on the prowl.

Mrs. Coyote came around the corner of the house with a hose in her hand. The golden yellow and orange roadrunner sighed dreamily as she watered the flowerbeds. 'Mrs. Coyote.' She still wasn't used to it. The roadrunner jumped as a tall grey coyote padded silently up behind her. "Oh! you startled me."

"That's not really necessary, you know." The coyote slipped his arms around the hen roadrunner, nibbling lightly at the downy feathers of her neck. "We have an automatic watering system."

The golden roadrunner turned around in the embrace, dropping the hose. The hedge rustled as the water from the hose hit it. "Is everything here automated?"

"It frees up a lot of time for more important matters." Her husband smirked. There was more than one way to catch a roadrunner. "Since I still have a few days before I have to go back to work, how about we tend to some of those 'more important matters' now?"

"Good! We should go shopping." The orange roadrunner laughed at the dower expression on her new husband's face. "We should pick up something for the boys. Maybe a new video game, and we could stop by the electronics store."

The golden roadrunner and the silvery coyote shared a lingering kiss. Arm in wing, the anthropomorphic couple headed into town.

"Come on, Cal." Beeper whispered, dripping wet from the abandoned hose. They'd have to wait for a more opportune moment when their parents weren't in public. The chase duo set off on Buster's assigned task of tailing Monty. "Let's go . . . before I'm sick."

**Video Game Blues**:

Quick! Let's duck in here!" Plucky snagged his porker friend and dashed into a small shop in the mall to avoid the Preppies' attention. Margot Mallard and Dansforth Drake strolled past.

"But Plucky! I'm a pig, not a duck!" Hamton followed the green duck despite his protest. The things he did for Buster! Though the pink porker had to wonder just what the Perfecto Preps were planning on as the two Preppies left the nearby fashion shop. Even though this day was a rerun of the one he'd just lived through, the studious pig couldn't help but feel guilty about not being in class.

Using an oblivious couple's legs as cover, Plucky sneaked through the indoor mall careful to keep his quarry in view. Having no idea that they had a tail, Dansforth Duck allowed his curvaceous girlfriend drag him into yet another boutique. The yellow duck shrugged. It was worth it to keep his girl happy; they'd just hit the electronics store on the way out. The two preppies paused for a quick kiss before disappearing down the fashionable accessories isle.

"Look, Hammy! There they go!"

Hamton peaked around the roadrunner's and coyote's legs where the two Tiny Toons had taken refuge. Calamity's spy cam did a great job of tracking the two Perfectos to the mall, but the flying recorder hadn't been able to trigger the mall doors to follow them in and lost the foul fowls. The little pink pig had been suspicious of Plucky volunteering for this stakeout, and now he knew why. Mistrusting the near-hypnotized swirl in his best friend's eyes, Hamton tugged Plucky down behind a trash can with him as the mismatched couple that they hid behind strolled away, arm-in-wing.

The little pig's restraining hold was no match for the arcade's draw. In his haste to get to the games, the small green duck skidded on the polished, checkerboard tile floor and nearly into a tall potted plant. Despite Hamton's hold on the green mallard's T-shirt, he was dragged into the arcade behind the obsessed duck. "Plucky-y-y-y!"

"Hey there, Pluck-ster! Glad you could dadgum make it after all." Foulmouth didn't even pause in his own game as he called a greeting to his friend. "I knew you'd dadgum couldn't resist coming!"

"Huh?" Plucky puzzled over the small rooster's odd greeting . . . for all of two seconds before he slipped in a coin into the neighboring game.

"Plucky!" Hampton scolded, and tried once again to pull the duck away. "We're supposed to be keeping an eye out!"

"Are you kidding, Hammy? This is a perfect cover for our spy mission." Plucky's eyes lit with a manic light as the arcade game of 'Marsbound Exterminator' ran through its opening sequence.

Zip! Zap! Plucky maneuvered his fighter pilot behind some asteroids to get the drop on some alien slime.

"Hey, FM," Plucky grunted as a particularly vicious barrage of alien zap-o-beams nearly took out his fighter. "Ya think Calamity knows a trick for getting through this level?"

"Calamity? No dadgum way! Cal's idea of winning a video game is ta build a robot ta play it for him. Da guy totally stinks at fighter games." Fowlmouth worked his own set of controller sticks. "His Dad, though . . .. Now _he's_ a major game programmer."

Zap! Zap! Zing!!

"Really? I wondered why the Coyotes had an arcade game in their living room." The thought of knowing someone on the inside of the gaming business brought a light to the small green duck's eyes, and caused Plucky to miss the squad of alien slime rounding the asteroid. One of his gaming lives vanished from the scoreboard. "Hey! I bet . . .."

Fowlmouth interrupted the little green duck with a string of profanity that threatened to bring the manager down on them. The small rooster slapped the game console once in frustration as he lost the game, but then as suddenly as his temper flared, it was gone again. The abrupt temperament changes was one reason he'd been unable to clean up his mouth. It wasn't like he went around all day swearing in his mind or anything. It just popped out whenever his hair-trigger temper ignited.

Zap! Zip! Zap!

"Oh yeah, Mr. Coyote knows all da tricks." As so-called villains, the little white cock and the coyote pup had spent some time together. The foul mouthed little rooster wasn't exactly a villain . . . not as such. But like his loudmouth mentor, Foghorn Leghorn, Fowlmouth was often cast in adversarial rolls . . . especially against farmyard types like hound dogs, ducks, and pigs.

And speaking of pigs . . . Hamton was nervously rocking from heel to toe and staring anxiously out the arcade. Fowlmouth snorted and crossed his arms critically across his chest. The small porker was probably terrified of being caught skipping school. "Huh, and people say that I'm chicken."

Kaboom!

"NOOOOOOO!" This time it was Fowlmouth who was interrupted by imprecations that turned even his white feathers blue.

YOU LOSE.

Plucky Duck was bodily on the game console, pounding at the machine in frustration as it mocked his playing skills.

The arcade manager said nothing as he drop-kicked the disruptive teen toons out.

Sailing through the air with a chorus of screams, the fowl and the pig landed in the same trash bin that they had hidden behind earlier. "Look, Plucky, it's Dansforth and Margot! They've got a load of electronic that would make even Calamity jealous! We need to go report to Buster."

Trash rained down on the two toon's heads as Margot emptied her purse looking for her lip gloss. It was empty and the pink duck tossed it as well.

"Oh, Danny-kins! Now that you have your silly wire and electronic thingys, let's stop by the 'Fashionable Toons' shop!" Margot draped herself over Dansforth and the yellow duck found that he still couldn't deny his magenta girlfriend.

"Wait, Hamton! Dansforth and Margot have a load of electronics that would make even Calamity jealous!" Plucky clutched at his sidekick in stolen inspiration. "Come on. We should report what _**I**_ found to Buster."

Hamton grudgingly trudged after Plucky, a dower expression settling on his face.

.

A/N: Inspiration for the arcade sequence came from 'Video Game Blues,' TTA episode "Toon TV."


	7. Rerun

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 7

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**Rerun**:

"Buster! Oh, Bus-s-s-s-ter!!" Plucky dashed for the blue bunny as soon as he rounded the corner in the Looniversity hall. "Wait until you hear . . .."

"Hey Pluck-ster! You guys ready yet? come on let's go!" Buster checked the clipboard that he was carrying. "We have you and Hamton scheduled to go on right after Babs and me."

"Say wha? . . ." Plucky stared clueless at the blue bunny. A nagging doubt that he refused to acknowledge tickled at the back of his mind.

"The talent show, remember?" Buster prompted. "You know, the one that Babs and I are hosting so that everyone can get their paired student projects done for the parent-teacher conference."

"Plucky," Hamton hissed, digging his elbow into Plucky's side. "This Buster is still behind the times."

"Huh? Oh, uh . . .." An odd look crossed Plucky's face. Ooops. Wrong Buster. Little Beeper zipped through pulling away the pig and duck with him. Plucky wriggled free of the roadrunner and peaked back around the corner.

Watching his past self as the handsome and debonair 'Batduck' interacting with Buster, Plucky preened even though he wasn't in his superhero costume. "Wow. I look _good_!"

The small red and orange roadrunner glowered at them. That ridiculous duck's ego was going to get them all killed! . . . or at least caught in a temporal loop or something.

Calamity tackled the vain duck down as the young coyote's past self stormed past. Good, now that both he and Little Beeper were in detention, they could follow Monty into the Talent Show without the risk of running into themselves.

Shirley floated up the the small group of fellow time travelers. The white loon was just glad that Beeper and Cal were still in their respective pieces. Since the grey coyote pup and and the little roadrunner were the only two Toonsters who hadn't been in the original talent show, they were now the only two Toonsters who could safely enter this time around. They wouldn't run the risk of running into themselves. "Like, good luck or some junk, guys."

"Going in." Little Beeper spoke a quick word to Buster over his spy watch, then dashed to the gymnasium door. He gave a thumbs-up sign to his stepbrother and both the small roadrunner and gray coyote slunk into the talent show.

Unaware of his twin shadows, Montana Max slipped backstage. The rich boy pulled on an all black coverall and tugged a black hood over his brown hair. The lively, lilting tune of "Singing in the Rain" started and Monty quickly blackened his face and slipped over the the curtain pull cords as a stage hand. "Heh, heh, heh, let the Talent Show begin! Those dumb bunnies won't know what hit them . . . and by the time I'm done, I'll get the highest performance rating!"

_I'm Screaming through the Pain_

_ Just Screaming through the Pain_

_ What a terrible feeling_

_ I'm slipping again . . .._

"Ugh! that's awful. I really don't have to do anything . . . they're sabotaging themselves." Monty paused thoughtfully for a moment then shrugged and scattered a bagful of marbles out on the stage right in the middle of Babs and Buster Bunny's song parody and dance routine. "Aw, who am I kidding? I just love messing them up."

Slipping and sliding all over the stage as they skidded on the loose marbles, Buster's and Bab's voices indeed did raise to near screaming decibels. Little Beeper snatched up a janitor push broom, and in a blur of Doppler red speed, the little roadrunner swept up the marbles. He was so fast that most of the audience wasn't even aware of the speedster's presence on stage.

"I'm warning you right now, coyote! Get your demented 'comedy partner' off stage. NOW!" Clad in black, Monty was invisible to the audience. Calamity jumped at the sound of his sometimes boss' voice hissing in his ear. He'd worked with Montana Max often enough in his roll of villain that Calamity knew how to get around the rich kid, and faking a chase scene was the easiest by far. As soon as Beeper dashed backstage, the coyote dashed after him.

One lone marble rolled across the stage, missed in the red and orange avian's haste to exit the stage. Babs stepped on it and promptly skidded into Buster just as they were finishing their song. Both bunnies landed in a heap on center stage, but it only added to the hilarity of the song.

"I meant to do that," Babs mumbled through a mouthful of her boyfriend's long blue ears. Buster gamely finished their act.

_'Cause I'm Screaming_

_ Just Screaming through the Pain!_

Babs propped herself up on her elbows, smashing Buster down even further onto the stage floor in the process as the thick, crimson crushed velvet curtain crashed down on them. She gazed dazedly out into the audience. "I've fallen and I can't get up."

Behind the stage curtain, Buster jumped to his feet and dragged his co-star under the curtain as well. As soon as the rabbits exited the stage, Monty slipped back on stage with a handsaw to sabotage the set for Plucky's and Hamton's act. The audience's applause for "Screaming Through the Pain" only died down when Buster and Babs Bunny (No Relation) took up their positions as talent show hosts and announced the next act.

"LET'S HEAR IT FOR 'THE TERROR THAT FLAPS IN THE NIGHT!'" (Uh, Babsy, that's Disney, we don't say things like that here.) "BATDUCK AND DECOY! . . ."

The curtain rose. A spot light shone down on a city stage set.

Plucky, in his 'Batduck' persona no sooner struck a dashing pose when a section of the fake building they were to use as a set fell over, making Plucky into pressed duck. A conveniently cut window in the set wall framed Hamton, for once leaving his 'Decoy' character totally unscathed. Calamity was there in an instant, hammering in nails and screwing in bolts to fix the set even as the show went on.

Ropes snapped from their moorings, hinged doors refused to open, and whole banks of stage lights broke loose, but each calamity was checked by the small grey coyote. Calamity twirled his screwdriver and socket wrench like an old time gunslinger and tucked his tools back into his body pockets. The small coyote walked off stage again, giving a thumbs up sign to the duck and pig. Much to the audience's amusement, Hamton's delight, and Plucky's everlasting aggravation, Monty's interference turned what was supposed to be a 'heroic superhero action sequence,' into a slapstick comedy act.

Buster and Babs slipped down from the announcers' box as the 'Batduck' set was cleared away. They each grabbed one of Calamity's and Little Beeper's arms. Buster was delighted. "Hey, guys! glad you could make it. Did Arnold let you out early?"

"Or did you just skip out of detention?" Babs added. Both roadrunner and coyote stiffened at their friends' past selves. It was odd to interact with 'yesterday's' bunnies.

"Come on, you're up." Buster quickly penciled in the chase team for the talent show.

Calamity's eyes widened, and the little coyote looked as if a huge bolder were about to fall on him. Beeper smirked at his comedic partner's panic; then he calmly handed Buster his Walk-toon music player that he pulled from his body pocket. The small red and orange roadrunner dragged his partner on stage. He whispered instructions while waiting for the curtain to rise.

"AND NOW, AN ACT THAT GOES WITHOUT SAYING . . . BECAUSE, AS SILENT TOONS, NEITHER OF THESE TWO SPEAK . . . CALAMITY AND LITTLE BEEPER!!!!" Not knowing what to expect from the duo, Buster nevertheless announced the upcoming act at the top of his voice.

The stage plunged into darkness, the curtain rose, then a small spotlight shone in center stage revealing the two stepbrothers, standing practically back to back, staring fixedly away from each other.

_ This indelible message will continue forever_

_ Forever, it will continue to live in my heart_

_ The bond we promised each other_

They had no costumes and no set, but as the music began, both brothers spun changed into white, casual suits with a definite oriental flair and stalked to opposite corners of the stage.

_ I wonder when it began, this separation_

_ But just as long ago, I'll never waver_

_ Believing that we could meet again,_

Utilizing the voice collars, Calamity and Beeper stunned the crowd with their act. Originally a foreign song, the translation sounded a bit unusual, but it gave an exotic air to the normally silent toons' performance.

_ I am here, the one who continues to wait for you_

_ I want to convey this and set us both free_

A musical interlude, as well as a camouflaged Monty, interrupted the small fowl and coyote's number. Without a set to sabotage, the black-clad human boy set about trying to trip up the duo. Little Beeper knocked the brush off the push broom that he used earlier and employed the handle as a bo staff, while Calamity brandished his screwdriver and socket wrench like a pair of sai. The stepbrothers launched into a stylized martial arts exhibition that was vaguely reminiscent of their own chases. Pummeled by Beeper's and Calamity's moves, Monty didn't stand a chance as the two covered each other's backs.

_ I am here, the one who continues to protect you_

_ I accept them all, the words we promised each other_

Calamity came face to face with a pair of rather ticked-off, apparently disembodied, eyes. Hesitating only a fraction of a second, Cal wielded his wrench and dropped the saboteur stagehand where he stood. 'Oh,' the distracted thought came to Calamity. 'This is why Monty was so mad at me yesterday . . . er, today . . . um, whenever.' the young coyote gave a mental shrug. At least with Monty out of the way, the jerk could no longer sabotage any of the Toonsters' performances.

The two stepbrothers left the stage, and their mock battle, to walk down among the audience.

_ There is no meaning for me, without you_

_ I want to convey this and set us both free_

_ This indelible message will continue forever_

Calamity and Little Beeper picked out individual Toonsters to direct their song to, going so far as to hold a hand, wing, or paw in their own for a few measures before moving on. Neither young toon acknowledged, beyond a quick quirk of a smile, the star-dazzled eyes or the sighs that followed them.

_ Forever, it will continue to live in my heart_

_ This Bond we promised each other_

Converging again on stage, Beeper and Calamity looked straight out at the audience to whom they sang while slowly backing away. They suddenly turned, and side by side, the two brothers slipped into the shadowed recesses of backstage. The lone spotlight winked out and the curtain fell.

"Where do I dadgum sign-up to join that act?" Awed, Fowlmouth stood staring at the empty stage. He was glad that he'd decided to come back from playing hooky in time for the talent show. If only Shirley would look at him the way she looked at Calamity when he sang to her during the performance. At the raucous cock's explicative, the assembled toons burst into applause.

Shaking away her daze, Babs announced Furrball and Fifi's dance act. Buster stared in awe at Little Beeper's Walktoon as he disconnected it from the auditorium sound system. Still fairly stunned by the performance, Buster handed it as well as their recorded project to the duo. Beeper chuckled to himself as he dashed away and put it in his mentor's in box. "We really were the ones that turned the assignment in . . . only a day late . . . or early . . . or whenever this 'rerun' time-line is."

**Cast Party**:

Little Beeper and Calamity watched as the earlier versions of themselves, finally free from detention, headed home.

_ "That was absolutely AWSOME, dudes."_

Buster, check.

_ "Yeah, you guys really saved my bacon!"_

Hamton, check.

_ "I'll get you yet, you mangy, no good, razza-frazzing critters! I'll get you; I'll get all of you! No one, and I mean NO ONE messes with me messing up everyone else! Do you hear me?!"_

Monty, double check. Calamity smirked. At least this time, the young coyote knew what was going on.

_ "Maybe he's just upset that he wasn't invited to Cal's party."_

And Plucky. Right on cue! Little Beeper tugged the fur on Calamity's shoulder to signal it was time; the chase duo slipped in behind the past Toonsters on their way into Weenie Burgers. They missed the cast party the first time around. There was no way that they were going to miss it again!

"Glad you could join us." Buster greeted his tardy classmates. The blue bunny still had his clip board from the talent show. "But I thought you two were grounded."

Little Beeper opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a furry grey elbow impacting his ribs. Calamity glared at him. In this time line, they didn't have their voice collars yet. The little coyote held up a sign.

[We are.]

Hamton looked worried. "Are you sure you should be here? You'll get in a awful lot of trouble."

[No sweat.]

Little Beeper signed.

[We've got it handled.]

The Toonsters shrugged and proceeded to order their burgers. Far be it from them to dictate 'proper behavior' to the chase comedy duo. If they wanted to risk their parents' wrath, that was their business.

Calamity and Little Beeper joined in the high spirits and joking around of the cast party, but they didn't really enjoy it nearly as much as they thought that they should. It was stressful not to let slip hints of what the others hadn't lived through yet. The roadrunner and coyote soon excused themselves and left to join their contemporaries. The spy-cam image on their Jr. Detective watches led them right outside of Weenie Burgers.

"Those Acme Losers are everywhere!" Roderick Rat paced the dingy alley across from the fast food joint. It was after school already and they _still_ hadn't managed to hook up with their informant from the Looniversity.

Spying on the villains who were spying on their past selves, the Toonsters crouched behind a dumpster further back in the alley. "Okay, guys, there we go into Weenie Burgers."

"Huh, we make a pretty good diversion, don't we." Plucky commented. The Perfecto preppies were so intent on watching the Toonsters in Weenie Burgers that they never noticed the carbon copies behind them.

"And like, here comes Montana Max or some junk. Like, who didn't see this coming." Shirley rolled her bright blue eyes. It didn't take a psychic to know that Monty would betray them in a heartbeat.

"Monty, my man!" Roddy exchanged smirks with the Acme Loo villain. "Glad you could make it."

"Yea, yea, right. Let's get down to business already." Montana Max looked at each of the Perfecto Preps surrounding him. He wasn't worried; he was more than a match for a couple of rats and ducks. "You got the money?"

"Uh, uh, uh, Monty. The facilities first." With Monty's 'Right this way,' Roderick Rat and his compatriots followed the human toon to the outskirts of Acme Acres to a huge automated factory. The brown and tan rat flung an arm over the boy's shoulders. "You know, Monty, I've never figured out why you waste your time and talent, not to mention your money, on the Looniversity. You really should be a Perfecto, you know."

Monty scowled. But he pushed down the momentary resentment that welled up at the discrimination. Humanoid toons were rare in Acme Achres, but welcome at the Looniversity. They were absolutely nonexistent at Perfecto Prep. He brushed it off then flashed a gap-toothed smile at the rodent. "You know how it is, Roddy. You are one of the many big fish in your Perfecto pond. I am the only barracuda in mine."

The two tiny tycoons sized each other up for another minute, then Monty launched into their business deal. "Roddy, my friend, it is time for you to join the big league. Forget the petty schemes of stolen play books and the old 'magnet in a bat' scams. If we work together, we can utterly destroy Acme Looniversity."

'_And rebuild in in MY OWN image._' Monty thought privately. He smirked at reminding the rodent about his past failures, and pushed ahead before the preppy could retaliate. He didn't trust the Perfectos any further than he could personally throw them, but he could use them. And best of all, he could get the Perfectos to foot the bill. "The factory is ready."

Calamity recognized the set of working blueprints for his 'Butler Bot.' Montana Max and Roderic Rat finalized their plans to manufacture battalions of large cleaning robots to scrub out the Toonsters. Not only had the rich brat not paid him for the design and cheated him out of the patents, but his EX-boss had also tainted his invention! Instead of cleaning implements, the tall server bots would sport circle saws and pickaxes. The small, grey coyote lunged forward, but his friends tackled him down.

"What are you doing?" Buster hissed. "If we tip our hand now, Monty and the Perfectos will just come up with something else to attack the Looniversity. We have to defeat them at their own game. It's the only way they will learn not to 'play' with such dangerous toys."

Roderick despised the spoiled rich kid. But even knowing that the feeling was mutual, they could band together against a common (as in common people) foe. "Deal."

The Toonsters waited for a few minutes after the villains disappeared into the factory, then Calamity slipped forward to jimmy through the locked door. Buster slipped from doorway through hall, from office cubicle around corridor in the administrative section of the factory. The rest of the Toonster infiltration force tiptoeing behind him like a long string of shadows. It wasn't long before they found the primary control room.

While most of the Toonsters kept watch at the hallway and out the large observation window overseeing the production floor, Little Beeper and Calamity studied the computer and controls. The little red and orange roadrunner's feathered fingers flew over the computer keyboard, his very fast and sure-fire computer skills quickly breaking into the enemy's files. Calamity huffed in annoyance. Since when was the fowl a hacking whiz? No wonder that bird always seemed to know about his traps! He'd have to upgrade his own security protocols. As soon as Beeper broke the encryptions, Calamity downloaded the robotic schematics and nefarious plans for them. The little grey coyote's ire at Beeper's hidden computer skills was forgotten at his rising indignation that these were his own designs that Monty had commissioned, but never paid for.

"Okay guys, we got what we need." As soon as the downloads were complete, Buster snagged his two industrial geniuses and lead his classmates out of the factory and back towards Little Beeper's house. "Everyone, head back to headquarters and rest up. We're going to be busy tonight."

.

A/N "The terror that flaps in the night," is a catchphrase of Disney's cartoon "Darkwing Duck."

.

A/N The song performed is by jpop brother duo, Sakamoto Naoya & Kazuya, ON/OFF, a modified stageplay version of "eien no setsuna" (Eternal Moment).


	8. May I Have This Dance?

Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Rerun"

Chapter 8

Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

**May I Have This Dance?**:

Little Beeper and Calamity sneaked around the front of their house, crouching low as they passed under the large front window. The young genius pulled a stethoscope from his body pocket and placed the diaphragm up against the window. He tucked one of the earpieces into his own ear while his stepbrother did the same with the other. Their parents' voices came in muted, but clear enough to understand.

"What's this, honey?" Dad picked up a CD that was lying on the endtable.

"Hmm? Oh that's one of Little Beeper's On/Off music discs. The singers are a Japanese brother duo. They're quite good actually. Not like some of the other music groups he favors." Mom watched her silver-grey lover slip the disk into the newly repaired home entertainment center, a soft smile tugging at the corner of her beak. A small laugh broke out as the tall coyote swept up the roadrunner hen and danced with her across the room to the lively, rapid tune.

Outside the living room window, both young toons grimaced in disgust. How dare their parents use their stuff while they were supposedly at school? Little Beeper cringed as the music started. 'Rondo,' – not the shortened version for the anime 'Vampire Knight,' but the full length that held the elements of the 'Guilty,' but encompassed much more in whole meaning –was one of his favorite songs. The little orange and red roadrunner had never minded when it had been just him and Mom, but with the coyote Dad there, it felt like an invasion of privacy. Looking over at Calamity, Beeper could see that his chase partner felt the same.

_ If the white rose petals opens, one by one_

_ Will the memories from those days revive?_

_ Like following a shining thread,_

_ Time is quietly flowing_

_ Even if the present moment is cut up by the setting sun_

_ Our shadows are overlapping_

_ If we can awake ourselves from eternal slumber_

_ And see each other tonight_

_ Come on,_

_ Let's dance in our rondo_

The tall silver and grey coyote twirled and dipped the lovely roadrunner hen, snatching brief kisses as they spun around each other. Calamity pulled out the universal control device that he'd cobbled together. With a few minor adjustments, he could use it to blow the entertainment center and disrupt their parents' romance.

_ Even if the darkness steals away the sun_

_ and the past splits apart the future_

_ Endless and far, boundless and deep,_

_ Like destinies that crossed each other_

_ The fact that we were finally able to meet_

_ Like how the sky years for the earth,_

_ The flowers wait for the rain,_

_ And the night falls in love with the morning_

_ I yearned so much for the fact that two hearts were one_

_ If the white rose petals scatter one by one_

_ And if I am reborn and bloom in your heart_

_ Our love will become eternity_

Silver and grey, the colors of the moon and stars, swirled intertwined with the colors of the desert and sun. The remote control shook slightly in his paw and Calamity found he couldn't push the button. He couldn't remember the last time his father looked so happy. Truly the night fell in love with the morning. The remote control unit slipped from his fingers.

"What happened?" Beeper hissed.

[ . . . it . . . ]

Calamity couldn't speak through the constriction of his throat. He never even tried the remote. Instead of him sabotaging his parents' feelings, they were affecting his.

[ . . . backfired.]

"Well, I must say, that was a thoroughly enjoyable dance, sir." The yellow and orange roadrunner hen pulled back with a kiss. "But I really should at least get the dishes done."

"Oh here, my love, allow me." Dad ruffled his silver-grey fur and gave his new bride a hug, then gently scooted her to the side. "Calamity has the place completely automated. I'll just start the cleaning routines."

Mom considered for a moment. It was nice . . . _really_ nice . . . that housework seemed to be a thing of the past, but she decided that she would take over the cooking. If she wanted automatically processed food, she'd go to Weenie burgers. Still, the golden roadrunner pondered, there wasn't much to do until the boys got home from school.

**Industrial Sabotage**:

"Feather Dusters," Buster called out.

"Check!" Shirley the Loon, Mary Melody, and Fifi LaFume held up their armfuls of feather dusters.

"Scrub Brushes," the blue bunny continued down his check list.

"Grarrrg! Check!" Dizzy Devil grinned, showing a mouthful of bristle bushes where his teeth should be. "All set here," Hamton added.

"Hoses," Buster was pleased with the efficiency of his strike force.

"Arrgh! Glurg, . . ."

Well, most of them anyway. Plucky wrestled with a length of hose that gave a good impersonation of an anaconda. The green duck had been testing out the pressure capacity of the hoses and they got away from him, drenching Babs in the process.

Buster gulped and quickly went on to the next item on his list. "Technical Support?"

"Check!" Little Beeper and Calamity chorused.

The Toonsters all jumped slightly at the verbal response. It was still just a little freaky to hear the normally silent toons speak.

Buster grinned. There was little or no chance of them running into themselves at this point. Most of their original versions were either at home or at the parent-teacher conference. The blue bunny gave his friends the thumbs-up signal. "Alrighty gang! Let's clean up this operation!"

It didn't take long for the toon strike force to infiltrate the factory block a second time. Nor did it take muck longer for the toonsters to efficiently revert the factory to manufacturing Butler Bots once more instead of Demolition Bots. The whole 'mission' was disappointingly boring, actually . . . quite the let down. They didn't even run into any guards. The toonsters got back to Beeper's house in time to get some rest before they would catch up with their time-line the next morning.

**Touch Down**:

Calamity fiddled with the resolution of the spy cam monitor on his watch, scanning the streets that the flying camera surveyed. Still no sign of errant Destructo Bots. The little genius knew there must be some out there. The factory had been going at least three hours before Buster's strike force arrived earlier tonight to sabotage production. On a hunch, the coyote sent the spy cam over to Perfecto Prep campus.

A soft snarl escaped his muzzle. Sure enough! There were _his_ robots on the Perfectos' football field, being put through their paces against mock-ups of the Toonsters. The young coyote waited until both the Perfectos stopped their practice, and his fellow Toonsters wound down their 'slumber party' and called it a night. Calamity quietly roused Mary Melody, Dizzy Devil, Fifi, and Furrball. The five predators quietly slipped out of the house.

A crimson wind blew by. Little Beeper came to a vibrating stop in front of the little group. A street light shown down on them, spotlighting the hunters.

"Go back home, prey," Calamity growled through his voice collar and kept walking, but Beeper zipped around his stepbrother and stopped him again.

"Oh, no you don't! You're not ditching me that easily, bro." The little red and orange roadrunner smirked, knowing that calling attention to their family status would annoy the crud out of the coyote. But he also trusted Mary and Fifi to keep him safe from any untoward retaliation. He tapped the spy-cam screen on his watch. "You're going robot hunting, aren't you?!"

"Stay out of this, desert chicken," Calamity warned.

Seeing a squabble brewing, Fifi step in to intervene. "Non, non, non, it izn't zat, it iz a prey – hunter thing."

"Yeah, Little Beeper," Mary added. "This kind of job is just better suited for the hunters and predators."

"Prejudiced," Beeper muttered quietly enough that the others could pretend they didn't hear. He was every bit as capable as the so-called predators!

Calamity turned and walked back to his stepbrother. He looked the small roadrunner in the eyes a moment, then pointed to the ground. The small carnivor held up a sign even though he could have used his voice collar.

[Your shoe's untied.]

Beeper beeped and looked down. Calamity flicked his stepbrother's beak and took off in a cloud of dust, leaving another sign momentarily suspended in the air that read:

[Got Ya!]

The chase was on.

Beeper dashed ahead, arriving at the Perfecto's football field ahead of the others. Still under the programming to pulverize Acme Loosers, the Destructo Bots stirred to life. Running to the far side of the field, the little roadrunner separated one of the robots from the others and circled around it, forming a vortex and drilling it into the ground.

Very pleased with himself, Beeper looked around to see if any of his 'hunter' friends saw his brilliant performance, but they were still at the other end of the field. Huffing in annoyance, the desert cock darted back to see what was keeping the slowpokes . . . and immediately ran afoul of one of the most bizarre traps that Calamity ever created. A huge conglomeration of three of the Destructo Bots rolled around under the goal post, flailing circle saws and pickaxes as it went. He always knew the kid genius to be eccentric. If he were honest with himself, the desert fowl acknowledged that his half brother's inventions usually only failed when he sabotaged them. With a flying tackle, Calamity barreled into his comedic chase partner, knocking the small fowl out of the way of the mechanical monstrosity. Little Beeper rolled onto the race track that circled the football field only to be circled around by Mary Melody on her roller skates. Calamity, on the other hand wasn't so lucky and was flattened into the turf by his own creation.

"Come on, guys!" Mary called as she skated off down the track. "Quit playing around. We have some robo-tail to kick!"

The pretty, dark complected girl zipped up to Furrball, taking one end of the rope that the blue alley cat was carrying. Together the two Toonsters strung it across the path of an advancing robot, tripping it. Dizzzy Devil descended on the downed Destructo Bot in a twister that unscrewed all of its bolts. The purple Tasmanian devil spun to a stop with a very pleased look on his face that immediately morphed into one of nauseas disgust. A trail of violet fumes wafted whimsically after the femme fatale skunk-ette. Fifi skipped merrily along with a couple of bots lumbering behind her. The purple skunk's noxious fumes triggered the robots' basic cleaning programs causing them to seek her out, but the methyl and butyl thiols also badly corroded the sensitive circuitry quickly rendering the mechanical things inoperative.

While their classmates systematically destroyed the Perfectos' demolition robots, the chase duo's efforts had rapidly degenerated into a 'touched-you-last' game of tag where the chaser and the chasee swapped rolls with every touch. Not that the two weren't taking care of their fair share of robots; any bot unfortunate to get caught up in their game became spare parts for stumbling blocks or traps for the duo's chase.

"Hah! Who says I'm not a Hunter?" Little Beeper triumphantly pinned Calamity to the ground.

How humiliating! At least the no one else saw his defeat. Calamity pushed the roadrunner off of him and rolled to his feet, only to stop in dismay. The rest of the Tiny Toons little hunters were sitting on a small section of bleachers that had escaped the destruction of the bots eating popcorn from the equally demolished concession stand. Mary Melody smiled widely at the pair and pointed up to the spy cam that was set to record. She couldn't help it. The reporter in her was having a field day.

Calamity help up a sign.

[Oh crud!]

Both Calamity and Little Beeper blanched, the color draining out of their fur and feathers. Calamity's sign clattered to the ground from nerveless fingers. How were they ever to secure the blackmail footage before it was used against them? Professors Wile and Road would NOT be amused at them for breaking character.

Covering their embarrassment, Beeper and Calamity turned to deal with the last rampaging robot. The Duo gave each other high 'fours' as it crumbled to a pile of spare parts, but then they looked away from each other. Oh yeah. They were supposed to be mad at each other. The two turned from each other and stalked away.

A huge, muscled arm reached out and snagged Calamity as the little grey coyote stomped past a line of football tackle dummies. The large, dog-like toons held him still while the jackass Halfback tied him to the tackling frame.

"Well, well, well, it looks like we have a new tackling dummy." Roddy cracked his knuckles as he approached. As Quarterback and team captain, the rat was always looking for ways to improve their game. Roderick Rat was furious. The Acme loosers demolished not only their football field, but also destroyed their contingent of robots! That creep of a kid, Montana Max didn't come cheap either! The rodent let his irritation be soothed by the tackling practice for a moment. He took a deep breath then shrugged. It was only the first batch of robots after all. There were plenty more where these came from. And after the team pounded the scrappy coyote good, then maybe he could press the kid genius into working for him!

A very loud "BEEP! BEEP!!" followed closely by the screeching of tires heralded an ACME delivery truck. It came to a stop just beyond where the Perfectos had stood. Roddy and his preppy football team pealed themselves up off the turf. They took off, loudly muttering promises of retribution and that 'Day of Retribution' would be tomorrow!

"No one messes with my brother!" Beeper clamped his own beak shut with his hand-wings. He did not mean to say that!

[Stupid, glitch ridden Collar!]

Little Beeper fumed at Calamity's buggy operating program for the dumb thing. But the only one he was fooling was himself. Mary and Fifi smirked at each other while Dizzy and Furrball led the brother duo back to their base of operations.

Furrball gave a low whistle as he took one final look around at the devastation that was the Perfecto Prep campus. It was a good thing they took out the robots. With all those saws and picks, they would have made short work of Acme Looniversity.

**Good Morning**:

Little Beeper ducked down behind the hedge, dragging Calamity with him as the newspaper boy peddled up the street. Buster Bunny chucked the paper in the general direction of the Coyotes' house and peddled off on his bicycle to finish his route; never realizing that in an hour, he and the gang would be thrown back in time.

Calamity rubbed his head where the newspaper smacked him, then tossed it up on the front porch. You'd think that being the football team captain, Buster would have better aim! The small coyote and little roadrunner settled down in the same bush as they had yesterday, waiting for the original versions of themselves to head off to school. This was their last chance to fix things!

It might not be quite kosher to plant fake pictures and a falsified diary around the house for their parents to find, but if the "incriminating evidence" broke up their marriage, then it was worth the subterfuge. It was for the greater good, after all. And if finding out about 'secret loves' didn't work, then just maybe the young roadrunner and coyote would just have to modify the flashback machine and go even back further back in time to stop their parents from ever going on that wretched cruise and marrying in the first place! Despite the fact that Shirley warned it might risk the cosmic balance to meddle with fixed events, it couldn't be a worse catastrophe than the one that the Toonsters were trying to avert even now with the Perfectos' Destructo Bots.

The original Calamity and Beeper finally left for school – and it wasn't a happy thing. They had been feuding terribly that morning. The original Calamity went so far as to kick the newspaper off the porch, sending it into the bushes. It struck his double, . . . again. Seeing themselves act out, the two stepbrothers felt slightly ashamed.

Peeking through the window, the boys found both parents in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast. Dad was whistling merrily while Mom chirruped a cheerful tune. They both looked so happy. Calamity turned and slide down the outside wall of the house until he was scrunched down under the open window.

Beeper watched his Mom through the window. Though she used to all the time, the yellow and orange roadrunner hadn't sung like that forever. Beeper dropped his eyes in shame. Calamity was hunched up on the ground beside him. The coyote pup's eyes were squinched shut tight, but hot tears leaked out anyway. Apparently his dad hadn't been so happy in a long time either. Beeper put his wing around the little coyote.

[ At least you know that your ]

[Mom loved you and your dad.]

_His_ dad had left them. The fear, the anger, the sadness, . . . the guilt . . . assailed the tiny roadrunner all over again. He still struggled with the feeling that it was all somehow his fault. If he'd been a better roadrunner, . . . faster, . . . a better son, then his dad would never have left.

[They really are happy together, aren't they?]

Calamity looked up when he felt a damp spot drop onto his fur.

[Yeah. It appears so.]

Both desert toons stood a moment in silence.

[Well, it might not be so bad . . .]

Calamity pulled out the 'evidence' and began shredding the condemning pictures. Beeper picked up the diary, ripping it in half.

[ . . . having you for a brother.]

Ensuring that their past-selves were out of sight, the two rushed into the house. Calamity hugged his 'Mom' while Beeper did the same with his 'Dad.' Neither could speak . . . even if Calamity hadn't scavenged the voice collars for parts. The golden roadrunner and silver-grey coyote exchanged astonished looks. Mom hugged Calamity tight, kissing him on the top of his head. Her hard beak dabbling in his cheek fur felt . . . odd . . . odd, but not bad. Dad slipped an arm around Beeper's shoulders in a firm, one armed hug and ruffled the little roadrunner's feather head crest. Slightly embarrassed, but feeling good, Calamity and Little Beeper rushed off to rendezvous with Buster and the gang for the time-resolution.

**Déjà Vu . . . All Over Again**:

Montana Max slipped from the Computer Animation class, not noticing the duplicate Toonsters hiding in the lockers near Granny's classroom door. Nor did the spoiled brat hear a distinctly canine snicker as Calamity pulled out a remote control device and activated a personalized Butler Bot that he'd designed specifically for his ex-boss. He twisted the remote select knob to the 'Clean His Clock' setting. The little grey coyote might have had to scavenge spare parts from his voice collar in order to make it, but it was worth the loss of his voice just to see Monty run from the mechanical intones of, 'Take out the trash . . .. Take out the trash . . ..'

"Alright, there we go!" Babs' proclamation was interrupted by Dizzy and Beeper rushing everyone into Granny's computer animation class. At that exact moment, the time loop smoothed out . . . only a minor 'double exposure' effect occurred with a slight overlap of both sets of Toonsters being in the same place at the same time. "And here we come"

"_Hey, guys!!! . . ._" Both Busters' words doubled, sounding with a slight resonance.

Even if Buster and Babs were no longer sitting at their desks as they were the first time around, while Mary Melody had on a different top and jeans, and Little Beeper was now standing directly in the midst of the Toonsters instead of hiding behind the machine; no one noticed in the swirl of purple, red and general time distortion of the Flashback Time Scene Change machine. The Tiny Toons all heaved a sigh of relief as they were phased back into the normal time stream.

"Hamton!" Plucky was so relieved that he practically hugged his little porker sidekick. "We're back in time!"

"Back in time?" Hamton echoed. "But, Plucky, I thought we were back in the present."

As Calamity initiated the shutdown sequence of his invention, Buster hopped over to the window. Rank upon rank, a veritable battalion of shining silvery robots with hose, scrub brush and feather duster attachments veered away from the Acme Looniversity walls! It was very satisfying to see the Perfecto Preps floundering in soap suds and water jets, or collapsing in fits of enforced giggles by being ticked with feather dusters. "Hey, guys! It worked!"

Granny blinked through her bifocal spectacles as a time warp visual effect wavered out to engulf nearly a dozen of the Toonsters and for a brief moment it looked as if reality (toonality) took a double exposure of everyone in the field of the effect. Then it settled down and all her students resolved into their proper number. "Oh, yes. I supposed it did work at that. I must say Calamity, that was one of the most realistic time change animation events that I've ever seen."

Unfortunately for the Toonsters, to Granny it looked like Calamity's time change effect worked as advertised. And, as such, the class proceeded as usual with no one knowing how close the school came to being demolished.

Little Beeper and Calamity weren't paying that much attention in class. Little Beeper yawned. The last five minutes was the longest day and a half they had ever spent! And Professor Tweety was right. They _had_ gone to an awful lot of trouble just to get into trouble. Using notes, the two stepbrothers apologized to each other for all the restrictions, groundings and detentions that they now had. Even though they prevented the devastation that Perfecto Prep would have caused and set things right with their parents, the stepbrothers still had to pay the consequences of yesterday.

"Awww!" Babs folded her hand paws up under her chin. It was so sweet to see Beeper and Calamity reconcile. She wasn't paying attention in class either, but had turned on the subtitles (since she couldn't eavesdrop on silent toons.) and was watching the comedy chase duo.

Noticing a certain lack of attention in her students, Granny stalked up behind Little Beeper and Calamity. The elderly toon lady taped her foot impatiently, then snatched a note Calamity just passed to his brother. Teachers everywhere hated notes passed in class! "Calamity, since you deem it unnecessary to pay attention in class, perhaps you would like to tell us all the use of use real-time computer graphics, to include the typical CGI applications of pre-rendered cut scenes and intro movies for a FMV?"

Though it would be simplicity itself to render a full motion video based on such criteria, Calamity remembered the time skip mess from the last time he correctly answered one of Granny's questions. He'd rather write a mega long term paper than go through _that_ again!

[Um . . . I don't know, Ma'am.]

Granny's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, then they narrowed in suspicion. "In that case, Calamity, you have some research to do. Bring in a working sample of it for next class."

The little coyote tilted out of his chair in a dead faint.

**END**


End file.
